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COPY 1 


CHRONICLES 


OF THE 


o^honberg-Cotta Family 


By Elizabeth Charles. 


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CHRONICLES 


i 


OF THE 

Schonberg-Cotta Family 


BY 

Elizabeth Charles. 

iO . w 


New York: 

JOHN B. ALDEN, PUBLISHER. 
1888. 














































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CONTENTS. 


PART I.—Else’s Introduction of Herself and Chronicle, 5 


Her Brother Friedrich [Fritz.] 
Her Ancestry. 


Other Members of the Family. 
Delicate Irony. 


PART II.—Friedrich’s Chronicle, 


Sage Reflections. 

Leaves Home for Erfurt. 
Gets Lost in a Forest. 

A Gloomy Night. 


Arrives at Erfurt. 

The University. 

Visits Luther's Home with Him. 


PART III.—Else’s Chronicle, 


Eva, a Distant Relative, Introduced 
into the Family. 

PART IV.—Else’s 

Fritz at Home Again. 

The Change Which His University 
Life is Producing in Him. 
Interesting Family Developments. 
Eva Begins Latin. 


Discussions among Them Con 
nected With the Event. 

Eva’s Religion. 

Chronicle continued, 

Friedrich's Chronicle. 

More of Martin Luther. 

He discovers a Latin Bible. 

The Plague Breaks Out. 


I Martin Luther. 

I Else’s Treasures. 

17 

Accident to Luther. 

Obtains a Scholarship. 

Luther Dangerously Ill 

25 

Its Peculiarity. 

Makes a Deep Impression. 

Legend of St. Christopher. 

30 

Luther Determines to Become a 
Monk. 

The Excitement and Distress 
among His Friends. 

His Monkish Life. 

40 

Fritz’s Interview with Her When 
Supposed to be Dying. 


43 

I April 9th, He Finds the Missing 
I Part of Eva’s Bible Sentence. 

50 

I What Was Thought of the Matter. 
| Eva’s Legend of St. Catherine. 

I Else’s Visit to the Elector. 

59 


PART Y—Else’s Chronicle, 

A Terrible Time. I Fritz’s Attack and Recovery. 

The Plague in Eisenach. | Eva’s Attack. 

In the Family. > 

PART VI.—Friedrich’s Story, 

He Becomes an Augustinian Monk I What He Writes from There, 
in Luther’s Cloister. I The Bible Put in His Hands. 

PART VII.—Else’s Story, 

Her Mental Conflicts on Account I More of Eva. 

of Fritz. | Dr. Tetzel. 

Her Brothers Repudiate Monks. I His Sale of Indulgences. 

PART VIII.—Fritz’s Story, 


The Vicar-General Staupitz. 
Evangelical Instruction Received. 
Fritz is Ordered to Rome. 

Tauler’s Sermons. 

Augustine’s Confessions. 

PART IX.—Else’s 

The Family Leave for Wittenberg, i 
Their New Place of Residence and 
Relations. I 


Finds His Companion to Rome tc 
be Martin Luther. 

Luther Tells him about his Begin 
ning to Preach. 

Their Journey to Rome. 

Story, 

Their Journey from Eisenach. 
More of Eva. 

The Mystery. 


Luther and Staupitz. 

The Light Breaking on Fritz’s 
Mind. 

A Benedictine Monastery. 

Rome Reached. 

69 

Plays Acted in the Churches. 

Eva Decides on Being a Nun. 


PART X.—Fritz’s 

The Monks at Rome. 

Festivals and Sacred Ceremonies. 
Luther’s Strange Conduct at the 
Holy Staircase. 


Story, 

Wickedness of the Holy City. 
Inquiries concerning Their Pil¬ 
grimage. 

Eva's Story, 


78 

Her Life at the Convent. 

Sister Beatrice. 

Aunt Agnes, 
















CONTENTS. 


PART XI.—Else’s 

Home Life. 

The Father’s Latest Invention. 
Ulrich Von Gersdorf and Chriem- 
hild. 

Herr Reichenbach. 


Story, 

More of Luther. 

His Instructions to Else and Her 
New Religious Experiences. 
Her Betrothal to Herr Reichen¬ 
bach. 


87 

Luther’s Debate in Favor of the 
Bible. 

His Opinions Deeply Impressing 
Other Minds. 


PABT XII.—Eva’s Story, 


Convent Life. 

Luther Appointed Deputy Vicar- 
General. 

His Evangelical Sentiments. 


Else's Story. 

Chriemhild and Ulrich Married. 
The Plague at Wittenberg. 
Letter from Dr. Luther. 


PABT XIII.—Else’s Story continued, 


November 1,1517. 

Luther’s Theses against Indul¬ 
gences; 

Their Effect on the Community. 
The Students Burn Tetzel’s Answer 
to Luther. 


Fritz's Story. 

A Review. 

His Mission Through Germany. 

A Priest and Woman. 

Gets Unlooked-for News in the 
Thuringian Forest. 


PART XIV.—Else’s Story, 


Family Events Since She Last 
Wrote. 

Luther and Melancthon. 

Their Relations to and Opinions of 
Each Other. 

Luther’s Appeal to the Emperor. 
Melancthon’s Wife. 

Luther Publishes Another Work, 
“ The Babylonish Captivity.” 
His “Appeal to the Nobility.” 


December 10th, 1520. 

The Plot Thickens. 

Luther Burns the Decretals and 
the Pope’s Bull against Him¬ 
self. 

Public Excitement and Condition 
of Wittenberg. 

Eva's Story. 

She Reads the Bible to Others in 
the Convent. 


PART XV.—Thekla’s Story, 


96 

Tetzel and a Specimen of His In¬ 
dulgences. 

Repudiated by Luther. 

Luther before the Elector. 


105 


Luther’s Theses at Tubingen. 
Philip Melancthon at Wittenberg. 
Fritz Visits His Home. 

Placed at the Monastery at Mainz. 
John Wessel. 


114 


Its Effect. 

Discovers that Her Father was a 

Hussite. 

Luther's Last Book in the Convent. 
His Commentary on the Psalms 
Appears. 

Fritz Imprisoned at Mainz. 

His Letter to His Friends. 

Its Effect upon Eva. 


123 


Luther Takes His Departure for 
Worms. 

Her Attachment to Him for His 
Religious Instructions. 

How the Others Felt. 

Luther’s Triumphal Journey. 

He Preaches at Erfurt. 

Fritz's Stoi~y. 

Cause of His Imprisonment. 


His Escape from Prison and Re¬ 
ception at the Castle of Ebern- 
burg. 

An Attempt to Discourage Luther 
from going to Worms. 

It Fails. 

Affecting Incidents of His Journey. 

His Entry into Worms. 

His Appearance before the Diet. 


PABT XVI.—Fritz’s Story, 


His Success in Selling Luther’s 
Publications. 

Sentiment Concerning Luther 
among the Different Classes 
he Fell in with. 

Fritz at Paris. 

At Basil. 

Ulrich Von Hutten. 

Interview with Erasmus at Zurich. 


Zwingle. 

What the Swiss Thought of Luther. 
Fritz in Prison at Franconia. 
Priest Ruprecht and His Woman 
Again. 

Thekla's Story. 

Fritz Escapes. 

Chriemhild and Ulrich. 

Condition of the Peasants. 


PABT XVII.—Eva’s Story, 


She Receives Some Sheets of Lu¬ 
ther’s German Bible. 

Its Effect in the Convent. 

Luther’s Theses Against Monastic 
Life Reach Her. 

Monks Returning to Ordinary Life. 
Several of the Younger Nuns Ab¬ 
juring Convent Life. 

Eva Hesitates. 

She Hears of Fritz’s Imprisonment. 
Death of Beatrice. 


Eva Prepares to Escape from the 
Convent. 

Else's Story. 

Indulgences Again for Sale at 
Halle. 

Luther’s Safety and Place of Ref¬ 
uge Becomes Privately Known. 

His New Protest against Indul¬ 
gence-Mongers. 

Its Effect. 


His Mental Conflict that Night. 
Second Appearance before the 
Diet. 

Result. 

He Suddenly Disappears. 

His Friends Fear the Worst. 

Fritz Becomes a Hawker of Lu¬ 
ther's Writings. 


133 


Luther is Discovered. 

His Refuge at the Castle of Wart- 
burg. 

There Engaged in Translating the 
Bible into German. 

Thekla Reads Portions of It to the 
People. 

A Letter from Her Lover Bertrand 


147 

Augustine Monks Abandoning 
Monkish Life. 

Effect of the Proceeding. 

Domestic Matters. 

The Sacramental Supper Observed 
in German. 

The Mother Leads the Way. 

The Zwickhau Prophets. 

Another Cause of Excitement. 

Eva Finally Reaches Home, 
















CONTENTS. 


PART XVIII.—Else’s Story, 


Eva's Story. 

Wittenberg and Her Friends. 

September 21,1522. 

The German New Testament Pub¬ 
lished. 

Tliekla's Story. 

Hears Again from Bertrand. 

More of the German New Testa¬ 
ment. 

A Scene. 

Fritz Appears among Them, Hav¬ 
ing Escaped from Prison. 

Fritz's Story. 

December 1st, 1522. 

He and Eva Betrothed, and in a 
few Weeks to be Married. 


The Peasants in Open Revolt. 

How Fritz and Luther Act. 

The Revolt Suppressed. 

Luther and Catherine Von Bora, 
the Escaped Nun. 

The Elector’s Death. 

Its Effect. 

Luther and Catherine Married, 
June 23, 1525. 

Thekla’s Lover, Bertrand, Dies in 
Prison. 


His Love for a Daughter. 
Germany and Luther. 
Tliekla's Story. 

Effect of Her Affliction. 
Her School. 


Luther Reappears in Wittenberg. 
He Meets the People Again in the 
Pulpit. 

The Scene. 

His Sermon. 

Its Effect. 

Other Sermons and Their Effect. 

A Family Discussion. 

Luther and Zwickian Prophets. 
They Leave Wittenberg. 

Atlantis's Story. 

Concerning Herself. 

Her Copy of Kessler’s Narrative : 
The Black Bear Inn ; Luther in 
Disguise ; His Place of Refuge 
Discovered. 


Letters to Her. 

He Succeeds in His Mission, the 
Adjustment of Differ e n c e 
among His Friends. 

Fritz's Story. 

Of Luther’s Visit to Them at Eisle- 
ben. 

Interesting Interview. 

Concern about Luther’s Health. 


156 

The Relation of Monkish and Con¬ 
vent Life to this Event. 

Their Future Home. 

What Eva Has to Say. 

Else's Story. 

The Interest Taken in the Marriage 
of Fritz and Eva. 

Atlantis and Conrad. 

A Visit of Hussites. 

The Pairs Married. 

Their Departure from Home. 

Nine of Eva’s Friends Escape from 
the Convent. 

Catherine Von Bora the Guest of 
the Cottas. 


- . - - 175 

Divisons among Reformed Chris¬ 
tians. 

Luther and His Home. 

Else Visits Eva; Parsonage Scenes. 
The Gersdorfs. 

Fritz at Home. 

Tliekla's Story. 

Her Sore Trial in the Loss of Ber¬ 
trand. 


190 

I Christmas. 

Luther’s Favorite Child Sickens 
and Dies. 

\The Mother's Story. 

What She Says of Her Children. 

204 

February 18, 1543, Luther Taken 
Suddenly Ill and Dies. 

His Last Hours. 

Else's Story. 

Luther’s Funeral and Honors Paid 
to His Memory. 

Conclusion of the Family History. 


PART XIX.—Eva’s Story, 


Their Life among the People. 
Chriemhild and Ulrich. 

Priest Ruprecht Reappears. 

The Woman Bertha Brought to 
Fritz’s House. 

The Priest and Woman Married. 
Else's Story. 

Death of the Grandmother. 
Troublous Times. 

Uneasiness among the Peasantry. 
The Zwickliau Prophets Again. 


PART XX.—Else’s Story, 


A Convent Becomes a Nursery. 
Luther as a Father and Husband. 
His Differences with Others of the 
Reformers. 

His Interest in Children. 


PART XXL—Eva’s and Agnes's Story, 


A Lutheran Home. 

Tliekla's Story. 

Luther. 

He Completes His Commentary on 
Genesis. 

Affecting Incident Connected with 
It. 

He Goes to Eisleben. 

His Wife’s Foreboding. 













I 

* 


THE SCHONBERG-COTTA FAMILY. 


ELSE’S STOBY. 


I. 

Friedrich wishes me to write a chron¬ 
icle of my life. Friedrich is my eldest 
brother. I am sixteen, and he is seven¬ 
teen, and I have always been in the habit 
of doing what he wishes; and therefore, 
althongh it seems to me a very strange 
idea, I do so now. It is easy for Friedrich 
to write a chronicle, or any thing else, be¬ 
cause he has thoughts. But I have so few 
thoughts, I can only write what 1 see and 
hear about people and things. And that 
is certainly very little to write about, be¬ 
cause everything goes on so much the same 
always with us. The people around me 
are the same I have known since I was a 
baby, and the things have changed very 
little; except that the people are more, be¬ 
cause there are so many little children in 
our home now, and the things seem to me 
to become less, because my father does not 
grow richer; and there are more to clothe 
and feed. However, since Fritz wishes it, 
I will try; especially as ink and paper are 
the two things which are plentiful among 
us, because my father is a printer. 

Fritz and I have never been separated all 
our lives until now. Yesterday he went to 
the University at Erfurt. It was when I 
was crying at the thought of parting with 
him that he told me his plan about the 
chronicle. He is to write one, and I an¬ 
other. He said it would be a help to him, 
as our twilight talk has been—when always, 
ever since I can remember, we two have 
crept away, in summer into the garden, 
under the great pear-tree, and in winter 
into the deep window of the lumber-room 
inside my father’s printing-room, where the 
bales of paper are kept, and old books are 
piled up, among which we used to make 
ourselves a seat. 

It may be a help and comfort to Fritz, 
but I don’t see how it ever can be any to 

Note— The first portions of the Chronicle, before 
the Reformation openly commenced, are neces¬ 
sarily written from a Roman Catholic point of view. 


me. He had all the thoughts, and he will 
have them still; but I, what shall I have 
for his voice and his dear face, but cold, 
blank paper, and no thoughts at all 1 Be¬ 
sides, I am so very busy, being the eldest; 
and the mother is far from strong, and the 
father so often wants me to help him at his 
types, or to read to him while he sets them. 
However, Fritz wishes it, and I shall do it. 
I wonder what his chronicle will be like ! 

But where am I to begin. What is a 
chronicle ? Four of the books in the Bible 
are called Chronicles in Latin, and the first 
book begins with Adam, I know, because I 
read it one day to my father for his print¬ 
ing. But Fritz certainly cannot mean me 
to begin as far back as that. Of course, 
I could not remember. I think I had bet¬ 
ter begin with the oldest person 1 know, 
because she is the farthest on the way back 
to Adam; and that is our grandmother Von 
Schonberg. She is very old—more than 
sixty—but her form is so erect, and her 
dark eyes so piercing, that sometimes she 
looks almost younger than her daughter, 
our precious mother, who is often bowed 
down with ill-health and cares. * 

Our grandmother’s father was of a noble 
Bohemian family, and that is what links us 
with the nobles, although my father’s fam¬ 
ily belongs to the burgher class. Fritz and 
I like to look at the old seal of my grand¬ 
father Yon Schonberg, with all its quarter- 
ings, and to hear the tales of our knightly 
and soldier ancestors—of crusader and 
baron. My mother, indeed, tells us this is 
a mean pride, and that my father’s printing- 
press is a symbol of a truer nobility than 
any crest of battle-axe or sword; but our 
grandmother, I know, thinks it a great 
condescension for a Schonberg to have 
married into a burgher family. Fritz feels 
with my mother, and says the true crusade 
will be waged by our father’s black types 
far better than by our great-grandfather’s 
lances. But the old warfare was so beau¬ 
tiful, with the prancing horses and the 
streaming banners I And I cannot help 









6 


THE SCIIONB ERG-COTTA FAMILY. 


thinking it would have been pleasanter to 
sit at the window of some grand old castle 
like the Wartburg, which towers above our 
town, and wave my hand to Fritz, as he 
rode, in flashing armor, on his war-horse, 
down the steep hill side, instead of climb¬ 
ing up on piles of dusty books at our 
lumber-room window, and watching him, 
in his humble burgher dress, with his wallet 
(not too well filled), walk down the street, 
while no one turned to look. Ah, well! 
the. parting would have been as dreary, and 
Fritz himself could not be nobler. Only I 
cannot help seeing that people do honor 
the bindings and the gilded titles, in spite 
of all my mother and Fritz can say; and I 
should like my precious book to have such 
a binding, that the people who could not 
read the inside, might yet stop to look at 
the gold clasps and the jewelled back. To 
those who can read the inside, perhaps it 
would not matter. For of all the old barons 
and crusades my grandmother tells us of, 
I know well none ever were or looked 
nobler than our Fritz. His eyes are not 
blue, like mine—which are only German 
Cotta eyes, but dark and flashing. Mine 
are very good for seeing, sewing, and help¬ 
ing about the printing; but his, I think, 
would penetrate men’s hearts and com¬ 
mand them, or survey a battle-field at a 
glance. 

Last week, however, when I said some¬ 
thing of the kind to him, he laughed and 
said there were better battle-fields than 
those on which men’s bones lay bleaching; 
and then there came that deep look into 
his eyes, when he seems to see into a world 
beyond my reach. 

But I began with our grandmother, and 
here I am thinking about Friedrich again, 
I am afraid that will be the beginning and 
the end of my chronicle. Fritz has been 
nearly all the world to me. I wonder if 
that is why he is to leave me. The monks 
say we must not love any one too much; 
and one day, when we went to see Aunt 
Agnes, my mother’s only sister, who is a 
nun in the convent of Nimptschen, I re¬ 
member her saying to me wdien I had been 
admiring the flowers in the convent garden, 
“ Little Else, will you come and live with 
us, and be a happy, blessed sister here ?** 

I said, “ Whose sister, Aunt Agnes? I am 
Fritz’s sister l May Fritz come too ?” 

“ Fritz could go into the monastery at 
Eisenach,” she said. 


“Then I would go with him,” I said. “ I 
am Fritz’s sister, and I would go nowhere 
in the world without him,” 

She looked on me with a cold, grave pity, 
and murmured, “Poor little one, she is 
like her mother; the heart learns to idolize 
early. She has much to unlearn. God’s 
hand is against all idols.” 

That is many years ago; but I remember,, 
as if it were yesterday, how the fair convent 
garden seemed to me all at once to grow 
dull and cheerless at her words and her 
grave looks, and I felt it damp and cold, 
like a church-yard; and the flowers looked 
like made flowers; and the walls seemed 
to rise like the walls of a cave, and I 
scarcely breathed until I was outside again, 
and had hold of Fritz’s hand. 

For I am not at all religious. I am 
afraid I do not even wish to be. All the 
religious men and women I have ever 
seen do not seem to me half so sweet as my 
poor dear mother; nor as kind, clever, and 
cheerful as my father; nor half as noble 
and good as Fritz. And the Lives of the 
Saints puzzle me exceedingly, because it 
seems to me that if every one were to fol¬ 
low the example of St. Catherine, and even 
our own St. Elizabeth of Hungary, and 
disobey their parents, and leave their little 
children, it would make everything so very 
wrong and confused. I wonder if any one 
else ever felt the same, because these are 
thoughts 1 have never even told to Fritz; 
for he is religious, and I am afraid it would 
pain him. 

Our grandmother’s husband fled from Bo¬ 
hemia on account of religion; but I am 
afraid it was not the right kind of religion, 
because no one seems to like to speak about 
it; and what Fritz and I know about him 
is only what we have picked up from time 
to time, and put together for ourselves. 

Nearly a hundred years ago, two priests 
preached in Bohemia, called John Huss 
and Jerome of Prague. They seem to have 
been dearly beloved, and to have been 
thought good men during their lifertime; 
but people must have been mistaken about 
them, for they were both burnt alive as 
heretics at Constance in two following 
years—in 1415 and 1416; which of cohrse 
proves that they could not have been good 
men, but exceedingly bad. 

However, their friends in Bohemia would 
not give up believing what they had learned 
of these men, although they had seen what 




ELSE’S STORY. 


7 


end it led to. I do not think this was 
strange, because it is so very difficult to 
make oneself believe what one ought, as it 
is, and I do not see that the fear of being 
burned even would help one to do it; 
although, certainly, it might keep one 
silent. But, these friends of John Huss 
were many of them nobles and great men, 
who were not accustomed- to conceal their 
thoughts, and they would not be silent 
about what Huss had taught them. What 
this was Fritz and I never could find out, 
because my grandmother, who answers all 
our other questions, never would tell us a 
word about this. We are, therefore, afraid 
it must be something very wicked indeed. 
And yet, when I asked one day if our 
grandfather, who, we think, had followed 
Huss, was a wicked man, her eyes flashed 
like lightning and she said vehemently,— 

“ Better never lived or died I” 

This perplexes us, but perhaps we shall 
understand it, like so many other things, 
when we are older. 

Great troubles followed on the death of 
Huss. Bohemia was divided into three 
parties, who fought against each other. 
Castles were sacked, and noble women and 
little children were driven into caves and 
forests. Our forefathers were among the 
sufferers. In 1458 the conflict reached its 
height; many were beheaded, hung, burned 
alive, or tortured. My grandfather was 
killed as he was escaping, and my grand¬ 
mother encountered great dangers, and lost 
all the little property which was left her, 
in reaching Eisenach, a young widow with 
two little children, my mother and Aunt 
Agnes. 

Whatever it was that my great-grand¬ 
father believed wrong, his wife did not 
seem to share it. She took refuge in the 
Augustinian Convent, where she lived 
until my Aunt Agnes took the veil, and my 
mother was married, when she came to 
live with us. She is as fond of Fritz as I 
am, in her way; although she scolds us all 
in turn, which is perhaps a good thing, be¬ 
cause, as she says, no one else does. And 
she has taught me nearly all I know, except 
the Apostles’ Creed and Ten Command¬ 
ments, which our father taught us, and the 
Paternoster and Ave Mary which we 
learned at our mother’s knee. Fritz, of 
course, knows infinitely more than I do. 
He can say the Cisio Janus (the Church 
Calendar) through without one mistake, 


and also the Latin Grammar, I believe; and 
he has read Latin books of which I cannot 
remember the names; and he understand* 
all that the priests read and sing, and can 
sing himself as well as any of them. 

But the legends of the saints, and the 
multiplication table, and the names of 
herbs and flowers, and the account of the 
Holy Sepulchre, and of the pilgrimage to 
Rome,—all these our grandmother has 
taught us. She looks so beautiful, our 
dear old grandmother, as she sits by the 
stove with her knitting, and talks to Fritz 
and me, with her lovely white hair and 
her dark bright eyes, so full of life and 
youth, they make us think of the fire on 
the hearth when the snow is on the roof, 
all warm within, or, as Fritz says,— 

“ It seems as if her heart lived always in 
/the summer, and the winter of old age 
1 could only touch her body,” 

But I think the summer in which our 
grandmother’s soul lives must be rather a 
fiery kind of summer, in which there are 
lightnings as well as. sunshine. Fritz thinks 
we shall know her again at the Resurrec¬ 
tion Day by that look in her eyes, only per¬ 
haps a little softened. But that seems to 
me terrible, and very far off; and I do not 
like to think of it. We often debate which 
of the saints she is like. I think St. Anna, 
the mother of Mary, mother of God, but 
Fritz thinks St. Catherine of Egypt, be¬ 
cause she is so like a queen. 

Besides all this, I had nearly forgotten to 
say I know the names of several of the 
stars, which Fritz taught me. And I can 
knit and spin, and do point stitch, and em¬ 
broider a little. I intend to teach it all to 
the children. There are a great many 
children in our home, and more every year. 
If there had not beeu so many, I might 
have had time to learn more, and also to be 
more religious; but I cannot see what they 
would do at home if I were to have a voca¬ 
tion. Perhaps some of the youriger ones 
may be spared to become saints. I wonder 
if this should turn out to be so, and if I 
help them, if any one ever found some 
little humble place in heaven for helping 
some one else to be religious! Because 
then there might perhaps be hope for me 
after all. 

Our father is the wisest man in Eisenach. 
The mother thinks, perhaps, in the world. 
Of this, however, our grandmother has 
doubts. She has seen other places besides 





8 


TEE SCEONBERG-COTTA FAMILY. 


Eisenach, which is perhaps the reason. He 
certainly is the wisest man I ever saw. He 
talks about more things that I cannot un¬ 
derstand than any one else I know. He is 
also a great Inventor. He thought of the 
plan of printing books before any one 
else, and had almost completed the inven¬ 
tion before any press was set up. And he 
always believed there was another world 
on the other side of the great sea, long be¬ 
fore the Admiral Christopher Columbus 
discovered America. The only misfortune 
has been that some one else has always 
stepped in just before he had completed 
his inventions, when nothing but some 
little insignificant detail was wanting to 
make everything perfect, and carried off all 
the credit and profit. It is this which has 
kept us from becoming rich,—this and the 
children. But the father’s temper is so 
placid and even, nothing ever sours it. 
And this is what makes us all admire and 
love him so much, even more than liis 
great abilities. He seems to rejoice 
in these successes of other people just 
as much as if he had quite succeeded in 
making them himself. If the mother la¬ 
ments a little over the fame that might 
have been his, he smiles and says,— 

“Never mind, little mother. It will be 
all the same a hundred years hence. Let 
us not grudge any one his reward. The 
world has the benefit if we have not.” 

Then if the mother sighs a little over the 
scanty larder and wardrobe, he replies,— 

“ Cheer up, little mother, there are more 
Americas yet to be discovered, and more 
inventions to be made. In fact,” he adds, 
with that deep, far-seeing look of his, 
“ something else has just occurred to me, 
which, when I have brought it to perfec¬ 
tion, will throw all the discoveries of this 
and every other age into the shade.” 

And he kisses the mother and departs 
into his printing room. And the mother 
looks wonderingly after him, and says,— 

“ We must not disturb the father, child¬ 
ren, with our little cares. He has great 
things in his mind, which we shall all reap 
the harvest of some day.” 

So she goes to patch some little garment 
once more, and to try to make one day’s 
dinner expand into enough for two. 

What the father’s great discovery is at 
present, Fritz and I do not quite know. 
But we think it has something to do, either 
with the planets and the stars, or with that 


wonderful stone the philosophers have 
been so long occupied about. In either 
case, it is sure to make us enormously rich 
all at once; and, meantime, we may well 
be content to eke out our living as best we 
can. 

Of the motherl cannot think of anything 
to say. She is just the mother—our own 
dear, patient, loving, little mother—unlike 
every one else in the world; and yet it 
seems as if there was nothing to say about 
her by which one could make any one else 
understand what she is. It seems as if she 
were to other people (with reverence I say 
it) just what the blessed Mother of God is to 
the other saints. St. Catherine has her wheel 
and her crown, and St. Agnes her lamb 
and her palm, and St. Ursula her eleven 
thousand virgins; but Mary, the ever- 
blessed, has only the Holy Child. She is 
the blessed woman, the Holy Mother, and 
nothing else. That is just what the mother 
is. She is the precious little mother, and 
the best woman in the world, and that is 
all. I could describe her better by saying 
what she is not. She never says a harsh 
word to any one or of any one. She is 
never impatient with the father, like our 
grandmother. She is never impatient with 
the children, like me. She never com¬ 
plains or scolds. She is never idle. She 
never looks severe and cross at us, like 
Aunt Agnes. But I must not compare her 
with Aunt Agnes, because she herself once 
reproved me for doing so; she said Aunt 
Agnes was a religious, a pure, and holy 
woman, far, far above her sphere or ours; 
and we might be thankful, if we ever 
reached heaven, if she let us kiss the hem 
of her garment. 

Yes,"Aunt Agnes is a holy woman—a 
nun; I must be careful what I say of her. 
She makes long, long prayers, they say,— 
so long that she has been found in the 
morning fainting on the cold floor of the 
convent church. She eats so little that 
Father Christopher, who is the convent 
confessor and ours, says he sometimes 
thinks she must be sustained by angels 
But Fritz and I think that, if that is tVue, 
the angels’ food cannot be very nourishing; 
for when we saw her last, through the con¬ 
vent grating, she looked like a shadow in 
her black robe, or like that dreadful picture 
of death we saw in the convent chapel 
She wears the coarsest sackcloth, and often, 
they say, sleeps on ashes. One of the nuns 





ELSE'8 STORY. 


told my mother, that one day when she 
fainted, and they had to unloose her dress, 
they found scars and stripes, scarcely 
healed, on her fair neck and arms, which 
she must have inflicted on herself. They 
all say she will have a very high place in 
heaven; but it seems to me, unless there is 
a very great difference between the highest 
and lowest places in heaven, it is a great 
deal of trouble to take. But, then, I am 
not religious; and it is altogether so ex¬ 
ceedingly difficult to me to understand 
about heaven. Will every one in heaven 
be always struggling for the high places ? 
Because when every one does that at church 
on the great festival days, it is not at all 
pleasant; those who succeed look proud, 
and those who fail look cross. But, of 
course, no one will be cross in heaven, nor 
proud. Then how will the saints feel who 
do not get the highest places ? Will they 
be pleased or disappointed ? If they are 
pleased, what is the use of struggling so 
much to climb a little higher? And if they 
are not pleased, would that be saint-like? 
Because the mother always teaches us to 
choose the lowest places, and the eldest to 
give up to the little ones. Will the greatest, 
then, not give up to' the little ones in 
heaven? Of one thing I feel sure: if the 
mother had a high place in heaven, she 
would always be stooping down to help 
some one else up, or making room for 
others. And then, what are the highest 
places in heaven ? At the emperor’s court, 
I know, they are the places nearest him; 
the seven Electors stand close around the 
throne. But can it be possible that anyone 
would ever feel at ease, and happy so very 
near the Almighty ? It seems so exceed¬ 
ingly difficult to please Him here, and so 
very easy to offend Him, that it does seem 
to me it would be happier to be a little fur¬ 
ther off, in some little quiet corner near the 
gate, with a good many of the saints be¬ 
tween. The other day, Father Christopher 
ordered me such a severe penance for 
dropping a crumb of the sacred Host; al¬ 
though I could not help thinking it was as 
much the priest’s fault as mine. But 
he said God would be exceedingly dis¬ 
pleased; and Fritz told me the priests fast 
and torment themselves severely some¬ 
times, for only omitting a word in the 
Mass. 

Then the awful picture of the Lord 
Christ, with the lightnings in his hand I It 


is very different from the carving of him 
on the cross. Why did he suffer so ? Was 
it, like Aunt Agnes, to get a higher place 
in heaven ? or, perhaps to have the right 
to be severe, as she is with us ? Such very 
strange things seem to offend and please 
God, I cannot understand it at all; but that 
is because I have no vocation for religion. 
In the convent, the mother says, they grow 
like God, and so understand him better. 

Is Aunt Agnes, then, more like God than 
our mother ? That face, still and pale as 
death; those cold, severe eyes; that voice, 
so hollow and monotonous, as if it came 
from a metal tube or a sepulchre, instead 
of from a heart! Is it with that look God 
will meet us, with that kind of voice he 
will speak to us ? Indeed, the Judgment- 
day is very dreadful to think of; and one 
must indeed need to live many years in the 
convent not to be afraid of going to heaven. 

Oh, if only our mother were the saint— 
the kind of good woman that pleased God 
—instead of Aunt Agnes, how sweet it 
would be to try to be a saint then; and how 
sure one would feel that one might hope 
to reach heaven, and that, if one reached 
it, one would be happy there 1 

Aunt Ursula Cotta is another of the 
women I wish were the right kind of saint. 
She is my father’s first cousin’s wife; but 
we have always called her aunt, because 
almost all little children who know her do, 
—she is so fond of children, and so kind to 
every one. She is not poor like us, al¬ 
though Cousin Conrad Cotta never made 
any discoveries, or even nearly made any. 
There is a picture of St. Elizabeth, of Thur¬ 
ingia, our sainted Landgravine, in our 
parish church, which always makes me 
think of Aunt Ursula. St. Elizabeth is 
standing at the gate of a beautiful castle, 
something like our castle of the Wartburg, 
and around her are kneeling a crowd of 
very poor people—cripples, and blind, and 
poor thin mothers, with little hungry- 
looking children—all stretching out their 
hands to the lady, who is looking on with 
such kindly, compassionate looks, just like 
Aunt Ursula; except that St. Elizabeth is 
very thin and pale, and looks almost as 
nearly starved as the beggars around her, 
and Aunt Ursula is rosy and fat, with the 
pleasantest dimples in her round face. But 
the look in the eyes is the same—so loving, 
and true, and earnest, and compassionate. 
The thinness and pallor are, of course, 



10 


TEE SCHONB ERG-COTTA FAMILY. 


only just the difference there must be be¬ 
tween a saint who fasts, and does so much 
penance, and keeps herself awake whole 
nights saying prayers, as St. Elizabeth did, 
and a prosperous burgher’s wife, who eats 
and sleeps like other people, and is only like 
the good Landgravine in being so kind to 
every one. 

The other half of the story of the picture, 
however, would not do for Aunt Ursula. 
In the apron of the saint, instead of loaves 
of bread are beautiful clusters of red roses. 
Our grandmother told us the meaning of 
this. The good Landgravine’s husband 
did not quite like her giving so much to the 
poor; because she was so generous she 
would have left the treasury bare. So she 
used to give her alms unknown to him. 
But on this day when she was giving away 
those loaves to the beggar at the castle gate, 
he happened suddenly to return, and find¬ 
ing her occupied in this way, he asked her 
rather severely what she had in her apron. 
She said “roses!” 

“ Let me see,” said the Landgrave. 

And God loved her so much, that to save 
her from being blamed, he wrought a 
miracle. When she opened her apron, in¬ 
stead of the loaves she had been distribut¬ 
ing, there were beautiful flowers. And 
this is what the picture represents. I al¬ 
ways wanted to know the end of the story. 
I hope God worked another miracle when 
the Landgrave went away, and changed 
the roses back into loaves. 1 suppose "He 
did, because the starving people look so 
contented. But our grandmother does not 
know. Only in this, I do not think Aunt 
Ursula would have done the same as the 
Landgravine. I think she would have said 
boldly if Cousin Cotta had asked her, “ I 
have loaves in my apron, and I am giv¬ 
ing them to these poor starving subjects 
of yours and mine,” and never been afraid 
of what he would say. And then, perhaps, 
Cousin Cotta—I mean the Landgrave’s— 
heart would have been so touched, that he 
would have forgiven her, and even praised 
her, and brought her some more loaves. And 
then instead of the bread being changed to 
flowers, the Landgrave’s heart would have 
been changed from stone to flesh, which 
does seem a better thing. But wtfen I 
once said this to grandmother, she said it 
was very wrong to fancy other ends to the 
legends of the saints, just as if they were 
fairy tales; that St. Elizabeth really lived 


in that old castle of the Wartburg little 
more than a hundred years ago, and walked 
through those very streets of Eisenach, and 
gave alms to the poor here, and went into 
the hospitals, and dressed the most loath¬ 
some wounds that no one else would touch, 
and spoke tender loving words to wretched 
outcasts no one else would look at. That 
seems to me so good and dear of her; but 
that is not what made her a saint, because 
Aunt Ursula and our mother do things like 
that, and our mother has told me again 
and again that it is Aunt Agnes who is like 
the saint, and not she. 

It is what she suffered, I suppose, that 
has made them put her in the Calendar; 
and yet it is not suffering in itself that 
makes people saints, because I don’t believe 
St. Elizabeth herself suffered more than 
our mother. It is true she used to leave 
her husband’s side and kneel all night on 
the cold floor, while he was asleep. But 
the mother has done the same as that often 
and often. When any of the little ones 
has been ill, how often she has walked up 
and down hour after hour, with the sick 
child in her arms, soothing and fondling 
it, and quieting all its fretful cries with 
unwearying tender * patience. Then St. 
Elizabeth fasted until she was almost a 
shadow; but how often have I seen our 
mother quietly distribute all that was nice 
and good in our frugal meals to my father 
and the children, scarcely leaving herself a 
bit, and hiding her plate behind a dish that 
the father might not see. And Fritz and 
I often say how wasted and worn she 
looks: not like the Mother of Mercy as we 
remember her, but too much like the wan, 
pale Mother of Sorrows with the pierced 
heart. Then as to pain, have not I seen 
our mother suffer pain compared with which 
Aunt Agnes or St. Elizabeth’s discipline 
must be like the prick of a pin. 

But yet all that is not the right kind of 
suffering to make a saint. Our precious 
mother walks up and down all night not to 
make herself a saint, but to soothe her 
sick child. She eats no dinner, not because 
she chooses to fast, but because we are poor, 
and bread is dear. She suffers, because 
God lays suffering upon her, not because 
she takes it on herself. And all this can¬ 
not make her a saint. When I say any¬ 
thing to compassionate or to honor her, she 
smiles and says,— 

“ My Else, I chose this lower life instead 





RL8BP8 STORY. 


11 


of the high vocation of your Aunt Agnes, 
and I must take the consequences. We 
and I must take the consequences. We 
and the next.” 

If the size of our mother’s portion in the 
next world were to be in proportion to its 
smallness in this, I think she might have 
plenty to spare; but this I do not venture 
to say to her. 

There is one thing St. Elizabeth did 
which certainly our mother would never 
do. She left her little fatherless children 
to go into a convent. Perhaps it was this 
that pleased God and the Lord Jesus 
Christ so very much, that they took her up 
to be so high in heaven. If this is the case, 
it is a great mercy for our father and for us 
that our mother has not set her heart on 
being a saint. We sometimes think, how¬ 
ever, that perhaps although He cannot 
make her a saint on account of the rules 
they have in heaven about it, God may give 
our mother some little good thing, or some 
kind word, because of her being so very 
good to us. She says this is nomerit, how¬ 
ever, because it is her loving us so much. 
If she loved us less, and so found it more a 
trouble to work for us; or if we were little 
stranger beggar children she chose to be 
kind to, instead of her own, I suppose God 
would like it better. 

There is one thing, moreover, in St. 
Elizabeth’s history which once brought 
Fritz and me into great trouble and per¬ 
plexity. When we were little children, and 
did not understand things as we do now, 
but thought we ought to try and imitate 
the saints, and that what was right for 
them must be right for us, and when our 
grandmother had been telling us about the 
holy Landgravine privately selling her 
jewels, and emptying her husband’s treas¬ 
ury to feed the poor, we resolved one day 
to go and do likewise. We knew a very 
poor old woman in the next street, with a 
great many orphan grandchildren, and we 
planned a" long time together before we 
thought of the way to help her like St. 
Elizabeth. At length the opportunity 
came. It was Christmas eve, and for a 
rarity there were some meat, and apples, 
and pies in our store-room. We crept into 
the room in the twilight, filled our aprons 
with pies, and meat, and cakes, and stole 
out to our old woman’s to give her our 
booty. 

The next morning the larder was found 


despoiled of half of what was to have been 
our Christmas dinner. The children cried, 
and the mother looked almost as distressed 
as they did. The father’s placid temper for 
once was roused, and he cursed the cat 
and the rats, and wished he had completed 
his new infallible rat trap. Our grand¬ 
mother said very quietly,— 

“Thieves more discriminating than rats 
or mice have been here. There are no 
crumbs, and not a thing is out of place. 
Besides, 1 never heard of rats or mice eat¬ 
ing pie-dishes.” 

Fritz and I looked at each other, and be¬ 
gan to fear we had done wrong, when 
little Christopher said,— 

“ I saw Fritz and Else carry out the pies 
last night.” 

“Else! Fritz!” said our father, “what 
does this mean ?” 

I would have confessed, but I remem¬ 
bered St. Elizabeth and the roses, and said, 
with a trembling voice,— 

“They were not pies you saw, Christo¬ 
pher, but roses.” 

“Roses,” said the mother very gravely, 
“at Christmas!” 

I almost hoped the pies would have re¬ 
appeared on the shelves. It was the very 
juncture at which they did in the legend; 
but they did not. On the contrary every¬ 
thing seemed to turn against us. 

“Fritz,” said our.father, very sternly, 
“tell the truth or I shall give you a hog¬ 
ging.” 

This was a part of the story where St. 
Elizabeth’s example quite failed us. I did 
not know what she would have done if 
some one else had been punished for her 
generosity; but I felt no doubt what I must 
do. 

“0 father!” I said, “it is my fault—it 
was my thought! We took these things 
to the poor old woman in the next street 
for her grandchildren.” 

“Then she is no better than a thief,” 
said our father, “ to have taken them. 
Fritz and Else, foolish children, shall have 
no Christmas dinner for their pains; and 
Else shall, moreover, be locked into her own 
room, for telling a story.” 

I was sitting shivering in my room, won¬ 
dering how it was that things succeeded so 
differently with St. Elizabeth and with us 
when Aunt Ursula’s round pleasant voice 
sounded up the stairs, and in another 



12 


THE SCHONR ERG-COTTA FAMILY . 


minute she was holding me laughing in her 
arms. 

“ My poor little Else! We must wait a 
little before we imitate our patron saint; or 
we must begin at the other end. It would 
never do, for instance, for me to travel to 
Rome with eleven thousand young ladies 
like St. Ursula.” 

My grandmother had guessed the mean¬ 
ing of our foray, and Aunt Ursula coming 
in at the time, had heard the narrative, and 
insisted on sending us another Christmas 
dinner. Fritz and I secretly believed that 
St. Elizabeth had a good deal to do with the 
replacing of our Christmas dinner; but 
after that, we understood that caution was 
needed in transferring the holy example of 
the saints to our own lives, and that at 
present we must not venture beyond the 
ten commandments. 

Yet to think that St. Elizabeth, a real 
canonized saint—whose picture is over 
altars in the churches—whose good deeds 
are painted on the church windows, and 
illumined by the sun shining through them 
—whose bones are laid up in reliquaries, 
one of which I wear always next my heart 
—actually lived and prayed in that dark 
old castle above us, and walked along these 
very streets—perhaps even had been seen 
from this window of Fritz’s and my be¬ 
loved lumber-room. 

Only a hundred years ago! If only 
I had lived a hundred years earlier, or she 
a hundred years later, I might have seen 
her and talked to her, and asked her what 
it was that made her a saint. There are so 
many questions I should like to have asked 
her. 1 would have said, “ Dear St. Eliza¬ 
beth, tell me what it is that makes you a 
saint ? It cannot be your charity, because 
no one can be more charitable than Aunt 
Ursula, and she is not a saint; and it can¬ 
not be your sufferings, or your patience, or 
your love, or your denying yourself for the 
sake of others because our mother is like 
you in all that, and she is not a saint. Was 
it because you left your little children, that 
God loves you so much ? or because you 
not only did and bore the things God laid 
on you, as our mother does, but chose out 
other things for yourself, which you 
thought harder?” And if she were gentle 
(as 1 think she was), and would have 
listened, I would have asked her, “Holy 
Landgravine, why are things which were 
30 right and holy in you, wrong for Fritz 


and me?” And I would also have asked 
her, “ Dear St. Elizabeth, my patroness, 
what is it in heaven that makes you so 
happy there ?” 

But I forgot—she would not have been in 
heaven at all. She would not even have 
been made a saint, because it was only af¬ 
ter her death, when the sick and crippled 
were healed by touching her body, that 
they found out what a saint she had been. 
Perhaps, even, she would not herself have 
known she was a saint. And if so, I won¬ 
der if it can be possible that our mother is 
a saint after all, only she does not know it! 

Fritz and I are four or five years older 
than any of the children. Two little sis¬ 
ters died of the plague before any more 
were born. One was baptized, and died 
when she was a year old, before she could 
soil her baptismal robes. Therefore we 
feel sure she is in paradise. I think of her 
whenever 1 look at the cloud of glory 
around the Blessed Virgin in St. George’s 
Church. Out of the cloud peep a number 
of happy child-faces—some leaning their 
round soft cheeks on their pretty dimpled 
hands, and all looking up with such confi¬ 
dence at the dear mother of God. 1 sup¬ 
pose the little children in heaven especially 
belong to her. It must be very happy, 
then, to have died young. 

But of that other little nameless babe 
who died at the same time none of us ever 
dare to speak. It was not baptized, and 
they say the souls of little unbaptized babes 
hover about forever in the darkness be¬ 
tween heaven and hell. Think of the horror 
of falling from the loving arms of our 
mother into the cold and the darkness, to 
shiver and wail there forever, and belong to 
no one. At Eisenach we have a Foundling- 
Hospital, attached to one of the nunneries 
founded by St. Elizabeth, for such forsaken 
little ones. If St. Elizabeth could only 
establish a Foundling somewhere near the 
gates of paradise for such little nameless 
outcast child-souls! But I suppose she is 
too high in heaven, and too far from the 
gates to hear the plaintive cries of such 
abandoned little ones. Or perhaps God, 
who was so' much pleased with her for de¬ 
serting her own little children, would not 
allow it. I suppose the saints in heaven 
who have been mothers, or even elder sis- 
ters like me, leave their mother’s hearts on 
earth, and that in paradise they are all 





ELSE’S STORY. 


13 


monks and nuns like Aunt Agnes and 
Father Christopher. 

Next to that little nameless one came the 
twin girls Chriemhild, named after our 
grandmother, and Atlantis, so christened 
by our father on account of the discovery 
of the great world beyond the sea, which 
he had so often thought of, and which the 
great Admiral, Christopher Columbus, ac¬ 
complished about that time. Then the twin 
boys Boniface Pollux and Christopher Cas¬ 
tor; their names being a compromise be¬ 
tween our father, who was struck with 
some remarkable conjunction of their stars 
at their birth, and my mother, who thought 
it only right to counter-balance such Pagan 
appellations with names written in heaven. 
Then another boy, who only lived a few 
weeks; and then the present baby, Thekla, 
who is the plaything and darling of us all. 

These are nearly all the people I know 
well, except, indeed, Martin Luther, the 
miner’s son, to whom Aunt Ursula Cotta 
has been so kind. He is dear to us all as 
one of our own family. He is about the 
same age as Fritz, who thinks there is no 
one like him. And he has such a voice, 
and is so religious, and yet so merry withal; 
at least at times. It was his voice and his 
devout ways which first drew Aunt Ursula’s 
attention to him. She had seen him often 
at the daily prayers at church. He used to 
sing as a chorister with the boys of the 
Latin school of the parish of St. George, 
where Fritz and he studied. The ringing 
tones of his voice, so clear and true, often 
attracted Aunt Ursula’s attention; and he 
always seemed so devout. But we knew 
little about him. He was very poor, and 
had a pinched, half-starved look when 
first we noticed him. Often I have seen 
him on the cold winter evenings singing 
about the streets for alms, and thankfully 
receive a few pieces of broken bread and 
meat at the doors of the citizens; for he 
was never a bold and impudent beggar as 
some of the scholars are. Our acquaintance 
with him, however, began one day which I 
remember well. I was at Aunt Ursula’s 
house, which is in George Street, near the 
church and school. I had watched the choir 
of boys singing from door to door through 
the street. No one had given them any¬ 
thing: they looked disappointed and hungry. 
At last they stopped before the window 
where Aunt Ursula and I were sitting with 
her little boy. That clear, high, ringing 


voice was there again. Aunt Ursula went 
to the door and called Martin in, and then 
she went herself to the kitchen, and after 
giving him a good meal himself, sent him 
away with his wallet full, and told him to 
come again very soon. After that, I sup¬ 
pose she consulted with Cousin Conrad 
Cotta, and the result was that Martin 
Luther became an inmate of their house, 
and has lived among us familiarly since 
then like one of our own cousins. 

He is wonderfully changed since that 
day. Scarcely any one would have thought 
then what a joyous nature his is. The 
only thing in which it seemed then to flow 
out was in his clear true voice. He was 
subdued and timid like a creature that 
had been brought up without love. Es¬ 
pecially he used to be shy with young 
maidens, and seemed afraid to look in a 
woman’s face. I think they must have 
been very severe with him at home. In¬ 
deed, he confessed to Fritz that he had 
often, as a child, been beaten till the blood 
came, for trifling offences, such as taking a 
nut, and that he was afraid to play in his 
parents’ presence. And yet he would not 
bear a word reflecting on his parents. He 
says his mother is the most pious woman 
in Mansfeld, where his family live, and his 
father denies himself in every way to main¬ 
tain and educate his children, especially 
Martin, who is to be the learned man of 
the family. His parents are inured to hard¬ 
ship themselves, and believe it to be the 
best early discipline for boys. Certainly 
poor Martin had enough of hardship here. 
But that may be the fault of his mother’s 
relations at Eisenach, who, they hoped, 
would have been kind to him, but who do 
not seem to have cared for him at all. At 
one time he told Fritz he was so pinched 
and discouraged by the extreme poverty he 
suffered, that he thought of giving up study 
in despair, and returning to Mansfeld to 
work with his father at the smelting fur¬ 
naces, or in the mines under the mountains. 
Yet indignant tears start to his eyes if any 
one ventures to hint that his father might 
have done more for him. He was a poor 
digger in the mines, he told Fritz, and 
often he had seen his mother carrying fire¬ 
wood on her shoulders from the pine-woods 
near Mansfeld. 

But it was in the monastic schools, no 
doubt, that he learned to be so shy and 
grave. He had been taught to look on 




14 


TEE SCUONBERG-COTTA FAMILY. 


married life as a low and evil thing; and, 
of course, we all know it cannot be so high 
and pure as the life in the convent. I re¬ 
member now his look of wonder when 
Aunt Ursula, who is not fond of monks, 
said to him one day, “ There is nothing on 
earth more lovely than the love of husband 
and wife, when it is in the fear of God.” 

In the warmth of her bright and sunny 
heart, his whole nature seemed to open 
like the flowers in summer. And now 
there is none in all our circle so popular 
and sociable as he is. He plays on the 
lute, and sings as we think no one else 
can. And our children all love him, he 
tells them such strange, beautiful stories 
about enchanted gardens and crusaders, 
and about his own childhood, among the 
pine-forests and the mines. 

It is from Martin Luther, indeed, that 
I have heard more than from any one else, 
except from our grandmother, of the great 
world beyond Eisenach. He has lived al- 
ready in three other towns, so that he is 
quite a traveller, and knows a great deal of 
the world, although he is not yet twenty. 
Our father has certainly told us wonderful 
things about the great islands beyond the 
seas which the Admiral Columbus dis¬ 
covered, and which will one day, he is 
sure, be found to be only on the other side 
of the Indies and Tokay and Araby. Al¬ 
ready the Spaniards have found gold in 
those islands, and our father has little 
doubt that they are the Ophir from which 
king Solomon’s ships brought the gold for 
the Temple. Also, he has told us about 
the strange lands in the south, in Africa, 
where the dwarfs live, and the black giants 
and the great hairy men who climb the 
trees and make nests there, and the 
dreadful men-eaters, and the people who 
have their heads between their shoulders. 
But we have not yet met with anyone who 
has seen all these wonders, so that Martin 
Luther and our grandmother are the great¬ 
est travellers Fritz and I are acquainted 
with. 

Martin was born at Eisleben. His moth¬ 
er’s is a burgher family. Three of her 
brothers live here at Eisenach, and here 
she was married. But his father came of a 
peasant race. His grandfather had a little 
farm of his own at Mora, among the Thtir- 
ingian pine forests; but Martin’s father 
was the second son; their little property 
went to the eldest, and he became a miner. 


went to Eisleben, and then settled at Mans- 
feld, near the Hartz mountains, where the 
silver and copper lie buried in the earth. 

At Mansfeld Martin Luther lived until 
he was nineteen. I should like to see the 
place. It must be so strange to watch the 
great furnaces, where they fuse the copper 
and smelt the precious silver, gleaming 
through the pine-woods, for they burn all 
through the night in the clearings of the 
forest. When Martin was a little boy he 
may have watched by them with his father, 
who now has furnaces and a foundry of 
his own. Then there are the deep pits 
under the hills, out of which come from 
time to time troops of grim-looking miners. 
Martin is fond of the miners; they are such 
a brave and hearty race, and they have 
fine bold songs and choruses of their own 
which he can sing, and wild original pas¬ 
times. Chess is a favorite game with them. 
They are thoughtful, too, as men may well 
be who dive into the secrets of the earth. 
Martin, when a boy, has often gone into 
the dark, mysterious pits and winding cav¬ 
erns with them, and seen the veins of 
precious ore. He has also often seen for¬ 
eigners of various nations. They come 
from all parts of the world to Mansfeld for 
silver,—from Bavaria and Switzerland, and 
even from the beautiful Venice, which is a 
city of palaces, where the streets are canals 
filled by the blue sea, and instead of wagons 
they use boats, from which people land on 
the marble steps of the palaces. All these 
things Martin has heard described by those 
who have really seen them, besides what 
he has seen himself. His father also fre¬ 
quently used to have the schoolmasters 
and learned men at his house, that his sons 
might profit by their wise conversation. 
But I doubt if he can have enjoyed this so 
much. It must have been difficult to for¬ 
get the rod with which once he was beaten 
fourteen times in one morning, so as to 
feel sufficiently at ease to enjoy their con¬ 
versation. Old Count Gunther of Mansfeld 
thinks much of Martin’s father, and often 
used to send for him to consult him about 
the mines. 

Their house at Mansfeld stood at some 
distance from the school-house which was 
on the hill, so that, when he was little, an 
older boy used to be kind to him, and carry 
him in his arms to school. I dare say that 
was in winter, when his little feet were 
swollen with chilblains, and his poor moth- 



ELSE’S STORY. 


15 


er used to go up to the woods to gather 
faggots for the hearth. 

His mother must be a very good and holy 
woman, but not, I fancy, quite like our 
mother; rather more like Aunt Agnes. I 
think I should have been rather afraid of 
her. Martin says she is very religious. He 
honors and loves her very much, although 
she was very strict with him, and once, he 
told Fritz, beat him, for taking a nut from 
their stores, until the blood came. She 
must be a brave, truthful woman, who 
would not spare herself or others; but I 
think I should have felt more at home with 
his father, who used so often to kneel be¬ 
side Martin’s bed at night, and pray God to 
make him a good and useful man. Martin’s 
father, however, does not seem so fond of 
the monks and nuns, and is therefore, I 
suppose, not so religious as his mother is. 
He does not at all wish Martin to become a 
priest or a monk, but to be a great lawyer, 
or doctor, or professor at some university. 

Mansfeld, however, is a very holy place. 
There are many monasteries and nunneries 
there, and in one of them two of the coun¬ 
tesses were nuns. There is also a castle 
there, and our St. Elizabeth worked mira¬ 
cles there as well as here. The devil also 
is not idle at Mansfeld. A wicked old 
witch lived close to Martin’s house, and 
used to frighten and distress his mother 
much, bewitching the children so that they 
nearly cried themselves to death. Once 
even, it is said, the devil himself got up into 
the pulpit, and preached, of course in dis¬ 
guise. But in all the legends it is the 
same. The devil never seems so busy as 
where the saints are, which is another 
reason why I feel how difficult it would be 
to be religious. 

Martin had a sweet voice, and loved 
music as a child, and he used often to sing 
at people’s doors as he did here. Once, at 
Christmas time, he was singing carols from 
village to village among the woods with 
other boys, when a peasant came to the 
door of his hut, where they were singing, 
and said in a gruff voice, “ Where are'you, 
boys?” The children were so frightened 
that they scampered away as fast as they 
could, and only found out afterwards that 
the man with a rough voice had a kind 
heart, and had brought them out some 
sausages. Poor Martin was used to 
blows in those days, and had good reason 
to dread them. It must have been pleasant, 


however, to hear the boy’s voices carolling 
through the woods about Jesus born at 
Bethlehem. Voices echo so strangely among 
the silent pine-forests. 

When Martin was thirteen he left Mans¬ 
feld and went to Magdeburg, where the 
archbishop Ernest lives, the brother of our 
Elector, who has a beautiful palace, and 
twelve trumpeters to play to him always 
when he is at dinner. Magdeburg must be 
a magnificent city, very nearly, we think, 
as grand as Home itself. There is a great 
cathedral there, and knights and princes 
and many soldiers, who prance about the 
streets; and tournaments and splendid 
festivals. But our Martin heard more than 
he saw of all this. He and John Keineck 
of Mansfeld (a boy older than himself, who 
is one of his greatest friends), went to the 
school of the Franciscan Cloister, and had 
to spend their time with the monks, or sing 
about the streets for bread, or in the 
church-yard when the Franciscans in their 
grey robes went there to fulfil their office 
of burying the dead. But it was not for 
him, the miner’s son, to complain, when, 
as he says, he used to see a Prince of 
Anhalt going about the streets in a cowl 
begging bread, with a sack on his shoulders 
like a beast of burden, insomuch that he was 
bowed to the ground. The poor prince, 
Martin said, had fasted and watched and 
mortified his flesh until lie looked like an 
image of death, with only skin and bones. 
Indeed, shortly after he died. 

At Magdeburg also, Martin saw the pic¬ 
ture of which he has often told us, “A great 
ship was painted, meant to signify the 
Church, wherein there was no layman, not 
even a king or prince. There were none 
but the pope with liis cardinals and bishops 
in the prow, with the Holy Ghost hovering 
over them, the priests and monks with tlieir 
oars at the side; and thus they were sailing 
on heavenward. The laymen were swim¬ 
ming along in the water around the ship. 
Some of them were drowning; some were 
drawing themselves up to the ship by means 
of ropes, which the monks, moved with 
pity, and making over their own good 
works, did cast out to them to keep them 
from drowning,and to enable them to cleave 
to the vessel and to go with the others to 
heaven. There was no pope, nor cardinal, 
nor bishop, nor priest, nor monk in the 
water, but layman only.” 

It must have been a very dreadful picture, 





16 


TEE SCHONBERG-COTTA FAMILY. 


and enough to make any one afraid of not be¬ 
ing religious, or else to make one feel how 
useless it is for any one, except the monks 
and nuns, to try to be religious at all. Because 
however little merit any one had acquired, 
some kind monk might still be found to 
throw a rope out of the ship and help him 
in; and, however many good works any 
layman might do, they would be of no avail 
to help him out of the flood, or even to 
keep him from drawing, unless he had 
some friend in a cloister. 

I said Martin was merry; and so he is, 
with the children, or when he is cheered 
with music or singing. And yet, on the 
whole, 1 think he is rather grave, and often 
he looks very thoughtful, and even melan¬ 
choly. His merriment does not seem to be 
so much from carelessness as from earnest¬ 
ness of heart, so that whether he is telling 
a story to the little ones, or singing a lively 
song, his whole heart is in it,—in his play 
as well as in his work. 

In his studies Fritz says there is no one 
at Eisenach near him whether in reciting, 
or writing prose or verse, or translating, or 
church music. 

Master Trebonius, the head of St. 
George’s school, is a very learned man and 
very polite. He takes off his hat, Fritz 
says, and bows to his scholars when he 
enters the school, for he says that “ among 
these boys are burgomasters, chancellors, 
doctors, and magistrates.” This must be 
very different from the masters at Mansfeld. 
Master Trebonius thinks very much of Mar¬ 
tin. I wonder if he and Fritz will be 
burgomasters or doctors one day. 

Martin is certainly very religious for a 
boy, and so is Fritz. They attend mass 
very regularly, and confession, and keep 
the fasts. 

From what I have heard Martin say, 
however, I think he is as much afraid of 
God and Christ and the dreadful day of 
wrath and judgment as I am. Indeed I am 
sure he feels, as every one must, there 
would be no hope for us were it not for the 
Blessed Mother of God who may remind 
her Son how she nursed and cared for him 
and move him to have some pity. 

But Martin has been at the University of 
Erfurt nearly two years, and Fritz has now 
left us to study there with him, and we 
shall have no more music, and the children 
no more stories until no one knows when. 

These are the people I know. I have | 


nothing else to say except about the things 
I possess, and the place we live in. 

The things are easily described. I have 
a silver reliquary, with a lock of the hair of 
St. Elizabeth in it. That is my greatest 
treasure. I have a black rosary with a 
large iron cross which Aunt Agnes gave 
me. I have a nissal, and part of a volume 
of the Nibelungen Lied; and besides my 
every-day dress, a black taffetas jacket and 
a crimson stuff petticoat, and two gold ear¬ 
rings, and a silver chain for holidays, 
which Aunt Ursula gave me. Fritz and I 
between us have also a copy of some old 
Latin hymns, with wood-cuts, printed at 
Niirnberg. And in the garden I have two 
rose bushes, and I have a wooden cruci¬ 
fix carved in Rome out of wood which 
came from Bethlehem, and in a leather 
purse one gulden my godmother gave me 
at my christening; and that is all. 

The place we live in is Eisenach, and I 
think it a beautiful place. But never 
having seen any other town, perhaps I can¬ 
not very well judge. There are nine mon¬ 
asteries and nunneries here, many of them 
founded by St. Elizabeth. And there are I 
do not know how many priests. In the 
churches are some beautiful pictures of the 
sufferings and glory of the saints; and 
painted windows, and on the altars gor¬ 
geous gold and silver plate, and a great 
many wonderful relics which we go to 
adorn on the great saint’s days. 

The town is in a valley, and high above 
the houses rises the hill on which stands 
the Wartburg, the castle where St. Eliza¬ 
beth lived. I went inside it once with our 
father to take some books to the Elector. 
The rooms were beautifully furnished with 
carpets and velvet covered chairs. A lady 
dressed in silk and jewels, like St. Elizabeth 
in the pictures, gave me sweetmeats. But 
the castle seemed to me dark and gloomy. 
I wondered which was the room in which 
the proud mother of the Landgrave lived 
who was so discourteous to St. Elizabeth 
when she came a young maiden from her 
royal home far away in Hungary; and 
which was the cold wall against which she 
pressed her burning brow, when she rushed 
through the castle in despair on hearing 
suddenly of the death of her husband. 

I was glad to escape into the free forest 
again, for all around the castle, and over 
all the hills, as far as we can see around 
Eisenach, it is forest. The tall dark pine 



17 


FRIEDRICH'S CHRONICLE. 


woods clothe the hills; but in the valleys 
the meadows are very green beside the 
streams. It is better in the valleys among 
the wild flowers than in that stern old 
castle, and I did not wonder so much after 
being there that St. Elizabeth built herself 
a hut in a lowly valley among the woods, 
and preferred to live and die there. 

It is beautiful in summer in the mead¬ 
ows, at the edge of the pine-woods, when 
the sun brings out the delicious aromatic 
perfume of the pines, and the birds sing, 
and the rooks caw. I like it better than 
the incense in St. George’s Church, and 
almost better than the singing of the choir, 
and certainly better than the sermons 
which are so often about the dreadful fires 
and the judgmeilt-day, or the confessional 
where they give us such hard penances. 
The lambs, and the birds, and even the 
insects, seem so happy each with its own 
little bleat, or warble, or coo, or buzz of 
content. 

It almost seems then as if Mary, the dear 
Mother of God, were governing the world 
instead of Christ, the Judge, or the 
Almighty with the thunders. Every crea¬ 
ture seems so blythe and so tenderly cared 
for, I cannot help feeling better there than 
at church. But that is because I have so 
little religion. 


II. 

EXTRACTS FROM FRIEDRICH’S 
CHRONICLE. 

Erfurt, 1503. 

At last I stand on the threshold of the 
world I have so long desired to enter. 
Else’s world is mine no longer; and yet, 
never until this week did I feel how dear 
that little home-world is to me. Indeed, 
heaven forbid I should have left it finally. 
I look forward to return to it again, never 
more, however, as a burden on our parents, 
but as their stay and support, to set our 
mother free from the cares which are slowly 
eating her precious life away, to set our 
father free to pursue his great projects, and 
to make our little Else as much a lady as 
any of the noble baronesses our grand¬ 
mother tells us of. Although, indeed, as it 
is, when she walks beside me to church on 
holidays, in her crimson dress, with her 
round, neat, little figure in the black jacket 
witli the white stomacher, and the silver 


chains, her fair hair so neatly braided, and 
her blue eyes so full of sunshine,—who 
can look better than Else ? And I can see 
I am not the only one in Eisenach who 
thinks so. I would only wish to make all 
the days holidays for her, and that it should 
not be necessary when the festival is over 
for my little sister to lay aside all her finery 
so carefully in the great chest, and put on 
her Ascliptittel garments again, so that if 
the fairy prince we used to talk of were to 
come, he would scarcely recognize the fair 
little princess he had seen at church. And 
yet no fairy prince need be ashamed of our 
Else, even in her working, everyday 
clothes;—he certainly would not be the 
right one if he were. In the twilight, when 
the day’s work is done, and the children 
are asleep, and she comes and sits beside 
me with her knitting in the lumber-room or 
under the pear-tree in the garden, what 
princess could look fresher or neater than 
Else, with her smooth fair hair braided like 
a coronet ? Who would think that she had 
been toiling all day, cooking, washing, 
nursing the children. Except, indeed, be¬ 
cause of the healthy color her active life 
gives her face, and for that sweet low 
voice of hers, which I think women learn 
best by the cradles of little children. 

I suppose it is because I have never yet 
seen any maiden to be compared to our 
Else that I have not yet fallen in love. 
And, nevertheless, it is not of such a face, 
as Else’s I dream, when dreams come, or 
even exactly such as my mother’s. My 
mother’s eyes are dimmed with many 
cares; is it not that very worn and faded 
brow that makes her sacred to me ? More 
sacred than any saintly halo! And Else, 
good, practical little Else, she is a dear 
household fairy; but the face I dream of 
has another look in it. Else’s eyes are 
good, as she says, for seeing and helping; 
and sweet, indeed, they are for loving- 
dear, kind, true eyes. But the eyes I 
dream of have another look, a fire like our 
randmother’s, as if from a southern sun; 
im, dreamy, far-seeing glances, burning 
into hearts, like the ladies in the romances, 
and yet piercing into heaven, like St. 
Cecilia’s when she stands entranced by her 
organ. She should be a saint, at whose 
feet I might sit and look through her pure 
heart into heaven, and yet she should love 
me wholly, passionately, fearlessly, de¬ 
votedly, as if her heaven were all in my 





IB 


THE SCHONB ERG-COTTA FAMILY. 


love. My love I and who am I that I 
should have such dreams ? A poor 
burgher lad of Eisenach, a penniless stu¬ 
dent of a week’s standing at Erfurt! The 
eldest son of a large destitute family, who 
must not dare to think of loving the most 
perfect maiden in the world, when I meet 
her, until I have rescued a father, mother, 
and six brothers and sisters from the jaws 
of biting poverty. And even in a dream it 
seems almost a treachery to put any poor 
creature above Else. I fancy I see her kind 
blue eyes filling with reproachful tears. 
For there is no doubt that in Else’s heart 
I have no rival, even in a dream,, Poor, 
loving, little Else ! 

Yes, she must be rescued from the pres¬ 
sure of those daily fretting cares of penury 
and hope deferred, which have made our 
mother old so early. If I had been in the 
father’s place, I could never have borne to 
see winter creeping so soon over the sum¬ 
mer of her life. But he does not see it. 
Or if for a moment her pale face and the 
grey hairs which begin to come seem to 
trouble him, he kisses her forehead, and 
says, 

“ But, mother, it will soon be over; there 
is nothing wanting now but the last link 
to make this last invention perfect, and 
then—” 

And then he goes into his printing-room; 
but to this day the missing link has never 
been found. Else and our mother, how¬ 
ever, always believe it will turn up 
some day, Our grandmother has doubts. 
And I have scarcely any hope at all, 
although, for all the world, I would not 
breathe this to any one at home. To me 
that laboratory of my father’s, with its 
furnace, its models, its strange machines, is 
the most melancholy place in the world. 
It is like a haunted chamber,—haunted 
with the helpless, nameless ghosts of infants 
that have died at their birth,—the ghosts 
of vain and fruitless projects; like the ruins 
of a city that some earthquake had de¬ 
stroyed before it was finished, ruined 
palaces that were never roofed, ruined 
houses that were never inhabited, ruined 
churches that were never worshipped in. 
The saints forbid that my life should be 
like that 1 and yet what it is which has 
made him so unsuccessful, I can never 
exactly make out. He is no dreamer, lie 
is no idler. He does not sit lazily down 
with folded arms and imagine his projects. I 


I He makes his calculations with the most 
laborious accuracy; lie consults all the 
learned men and books he has access to. 
He weighs, and measures, and constructs 
the neatest models possible. His room is 
a museum of exquisite models, which 
seem as if they must answer, and yet 
never do. The professors, and even the 
Elector’s secretary, who has come more 
than once to consult him, have told me he 
is a man of remarkable genius. 

What can it be, then, that makes his life 
such a failure ? I cannot think; unless it is 
that other great inventors and discoverers 
seem to have made their discoveries and 
inventions as it were by the way, in the 
course of their everyday life. As a seaman 
sails on his appointed voyage to some defi¬ 
nite port, he notices drift-wood or weeds 
which must have come from unknown lands 
beyond the seas. As he sails in his calling 
from port to port, the thought is always in 
his mind; everything lie hears groups itself 
naturally around this thought; lie observes 
the winds and currents; he collects infor¬ 
mation from mariners who have been driven 
out of their course, in the direction where 
he believes this unknown land to lie. And 
at length he persuades some prince that his 
belief is no mere dream, and like the great 
Admiral Christopher Columbus, he ventures 
across the trackless unknown Atlantic and 
discovers the Western Indies. But before 
he was a discoverer, he was a mariner. 

Or some engraver of woodcuts thinks of 
applying his carved blocks to letters, and 
the printing-press is invented. But it is in 
his calling. He has not gone out of his 
way to hunt for inventions. He has found 
them, in his path, the path of his daily 
calling. I t seem s to me people do. not .be¬ 
come great, do not become discoverers and 
inventors by trying so be so, but by deter¬ 
mining to do in the very best way what 
they have to do. Thus improvements sug¬ 
gest themselves, one by one, step by step; 
each improvement is tested as it is made by 
practical use, until at length the happy 
thought comes, not like an elf from the 
wild forests, but like an angel on the daily 
path; and. the little improvements become 
the great invention. There is another great 
advantage, moreover, in this method over 
our father’s. If the invention never comes, 
at all events we have the improvements, 
which are worth something. Every one 
can not invent the printing-press or discover 




FRIEDRICH'S CHRONICLE. 


10 


the New Indies; but every engraver may 
make his engravings a little better, and 
every mariner may explore a little further 
than his predecessors. 

Yet it seems almost like treason to write 
thus of our father. What would Else or 
our mother think, who believe there is 
nothing but accident or the blindness of 
mankind between us and greatness ? Not 
that they have learned to think thus from 
our father. Never in my life did I hear 
him say a grudging or depreciating word of 
any of those who have most succeeded 
where he has failed. He seems to look on 
all such men as part of a great brotherhood, 
and to rejoice in another man hitting the 
point which he missed, just as he would 
rejoice in himself succeeding in something 
to-day which he failed in yesterday. It is 
this noblenesss of character which makes 
me reverence him more than any mere 
successes could. It is because I fear, that 
in a life of such disappointment my charac¬ 
ter would not prove so generous, but that 
failure would sour my temper and penury 
degrade my spirit as they never have his, 
that I have ventured to search for the rocks 
on which he made shipwreck, in order to 
avoid them. All men cannot return 
wrecked, and Mattered, and destitute from 
an unsuccessful voyage, with a heart as 
hopeful, a temper as generous, a spirit as 
free from envy and detraction, as if they 
brought the golden fleece with them. Our 
father does this again and again; and 
therefore I trust his argosies are laid up for 
him as for those who follow the rules of 
evangelical perfection, where neither moth 
nor rust can corrupt. I could not. I 
would never return until I could bring 
what I had sought, or I should return a 
miserable man, shipwrecked in heart as 
well as in fortune. And therefore I must 
examine my charts, and choose my port 
and my vessel carefully, before I sail. 

All these thoughts came into my mind 
as I stood on the last height of the forest, 
from which I could look back on Eisenach, 
nestling in the valley under the shadow of 
the Wartburg. May the dear Mother of 
God, St. Elizabeth, and all the saints, 
defend it evermore ! 

But there was not much time to linger 
for a last view of Eisenach. The winter 
days were short; some snow had fallen in 
the previous night. The roofs of the 
houses in Eisenach were white with it, and 


the carving of spire and tower seemed in¬ 
laid with alabaster. A thin covering lay 
on the meadows and liill-sides, and light 
feather-work frosted the pines. I had 
nearly thirty miles to walk through forest 
and plain before I reached Erfurt. The 
day was as bright and the air as light as my 
heart. The shadows of the pines lay 
across the frozen snow, over which my feet 
crunched cheerily. In the clearings, the 
outline of the black twigs were pencilled 
dark and clear against the light blue of the 
winter sky. Every outline was clear, and 
crisp, and definite, as I resolved my own 
aims in life should be. I knew my pur¬ 
poses were pure and high, and I felt as if 
Heaven must prosper me. 

But as the day wore on, I began to won¬ 
der when the forest would end, until, as 
the sun sank lower and lower, I feared I 
must have missed my way; and at last, as I 
climbed a height to make a survey, to my 
dismay it was too evident that I had taken 
the wrong turning in the snow. Wide 
reaches of the forest lay all around me, one 
pine-covered hill folding over another; and 
only in one distant opening could I get a 
glimpse of the level landi beyond, where I 
knew Erfurt must lie. The daylight was 
fast departing; my wallet was empty. I 
knew there were villages hidden in the val¬ 
leys here and there; but not a wreath of 
smoke could I see, nor any sign of man, 
except here and there faggots piled in some 
recent clearing. Towards one of these 
clearings I directed my steps, intending to 
follow the wood-cutter’s track, which I 
thought would probably lead me to the hut 
of some charcoal burner, where I might 
find fire and shelter. Before I reached 
this spot, however, night had set in. The 
snow began to fall again, and it seemed too 
great a risk to leave the broader path to 
follow any unknown track. I resolved, 
therefore, to make the best of my circum¬ 
stances. They were not unendurable. I 
had a flint and tinder, and gathering some 
dry wood and twigs, I contrived with some 
difficulty to light a fire. Cold and hungry 
1 certainly was, but for this I cared little. 
It was only an extra fast, and it seemed to 
me quite natural that my journey of life 
should commence with difficulty and dan¬ 
ger, It was always so in legend of the 
saints, romance, or elfin*tale, or when any¬ 
thing great was to be done. 

But in the night, as the wind howled 



20 


TEE SCHOJfB ERG-COTTA FAMILY. 


through the countless stems of the pines, 
not with the soft varieties of sound it makes 
amidst the summer oak-woods, but with a 
long, monotonous wail like a dirge, a 
tumult awoke in my heart such as I had 
never known before. I knew these forests 
were infested by robber-bands, and I could 
hear in the distance the baying and howling 
of the wolves, but it was not fear which 
tossed my thoughts so wildly to and fro, at 
least not fear of bodily harm. I thought of 
all the stories of wild huntsmen, of wretch¬ 
ed guilty men, hunted by packs of fiends; 
and the stories which had excited a wild 
delight in Else and me, a3 our grandmother 
told them by the fire at home, now seemed 
to freeze my soul with horror. For was 
not I a guilty creature, and were not the 
devils indeed too really around me ?—and 
what was to prevent their possessing me ? 
Who in all the universe was on my side ? 
Could I look up with confidence to God ? 
He loves only the holy. Or to Christ ? He 
is the Judge; and more terrible than any 
cries of legions of devils will it be to the 
sinner to hear his voice from the awful 
snow-white throne of judgment. Then my 
sins rose before me—my neglected prayers, 
penances imperfectly performed, incom¬ 
plete confessions. Even that morning, had 
I not been full of proud and ambitious 
thoughts—even perhaps, vainly comparing 
myself with my good father, and picturing 
myself as conquering and enjoying all 
kinds of worldly delights ? It was true, it 
could hardly be a sin to wish to save my 
family from penury and care; but it was 
certainly a sin to be ambitious of worldly 
distinction, as Father Christopher had so 
often told me. Then, how difficult to 
separate the two! Where did duty end, 
and ambition and pride begin? I deter¬ 
mined to find a confessor as soon as I 
reached Erfurt, if ever I reached it. And 
yet, what could even the wisest confessor 
do for me in such difficulties ? How could 
I ever be sure that I had not deceived my¬ 
self in examining my motives, and then de¬ 
ceived him, and thus obtained an absolution 
on false pretences, which could avail me 
nothing? And if this might be so with 
future confessions, why not with all past 
ones ? 

The thought was horror to me, and 
seemed to open a fathomless abyss of mis¬ 
ery yawning under my feet. I could no 


more discover a track out of my miserable 
perplexities than out of the forest. 

For if these apprehensions had any 
ground, not only the sins I had failed to 
confess were unpardoned, but the sins I 
had confessed and obtained absolution for 
on false grounds. Thus it might be at that 
moment my soul stood utterly unsheltered, 
as my body from the snows, exposed to the 
wrath of God, the judgment of Christ, and 
the exulting cruelty of devils. 

It seemed as if only one thing could save 
me, and that could never be had. If I 
could find an infallible confessor who could 
see down into the depths of my heart, and 
back into every recess of my life, who 
could unveil me to myself, penetrate all my 
motives, aud assign me the penances I 
really deserved, 1 would travel to the end 
of the world to find him. The severest 
penances he could assign, after searching 
the lives of all the holy Eremites and Mar¬ 
tyrs, for examples of mortification, it 
seemed to me would be light indeed, if I 
could only be sure they were the right pen¬ 
ances, and would be followed by a true 
absolution. 

But this it was, indeed, impossible I 
could ever find. 

What sure hope then could I ever have 
of pardon or remission of sins ? What 
voice of priest or monk, the holiest on 
earth, could ever assure me I had been hon¬ 
est with myself? What absolution could 
ever give me a right to believe that the bap¬ 
tismal robes, soiled, as they told me, “ be¬ 
fore I had left off my infant socks/’ could 
once more be made white and clean ? 

Then for the first time in my life the 
thought flashed on me, of the monastic 
vows, the cloister and the cowl. I knew 
there was a virtue in the monastic profes¬ 
sion which many said was equal to a second 
baptism. Could it be possible that the end 
of all my aspirations might after all be the 
monk’s frock ? What then would become 
of father and mother, dear Else, and the 
little ones? The thought of their dear 
faces seemed for an instant to drive away 
these gloomy fears, as they say a hearth-fire 
keeps oft' the wolves. But then a hollow 
voice seemed to whisper, “ If God is against 
you, and the saints, and your conscience, 
what help can you render your family or 
any one else ? ” The conflict seemed more 
than I could bear. It was so impossible to 
me to make out which suggestions were 




FRIEDRICH'S CHRONICLE. 


21 


from the devil and which from God, and 
which from my own sinful heart; and yet 
it might be the unpardonable sin to con¬ 
found them. Wherefore for the rest of the 
night I tried not to think at all, but paced 
up and down reciting the Ten Command¬ 
ments, the Creed, the Paternoster, the Ave 
Maria, the* Litanies of the Saints, and all 
the collects and holy ejaculations I could 
think of. By degrees this seemed to calm 
me, especially the Creeds and the Paternos¬ 
ter, whether because these are spells the 
fiends especially dread, or because there is 
something so comforting in the mere words, 
“Our father,” and “the remissions of 
sins,” I do not know. Probably for both 
reasons. 

And so the morning dawned, and the 
low sunbeams slanted up through the red 
stems of the pines; and I said the Ave 
Maria, and thought of the sweet Mother of 
God, and was a Tittle cheered. 

But all the next day I could not recover 
from the terrors of that solitary night. A 
shadow seemed to have fallen on my hopes 
and projects. How could I tell that all 
which had seemed most holy to me as an 
object in life might not be temptations of 
the world, the flesh, and the devil; and 
that with all my laboring for my dear ones 
at home, my sins might not bring on them 
more troubles than all my successes could 
avert ? 

As I left the shadow of the forest, how¬ 
ever, my heart seemed to grow lighter. I 
shall always henceforth feel sure that the 
wildest legends of the forest may be true, 
and that the fiends have especial haunts 
among the solitary woods at night. 

It was pleasant to see the towers of Erfurt 
rising before me on the plain. 

I had only one friend at the University; 
but that is Martin Luther, and he is a host 
in himself to me. He is already distin¬ 
guished among the students here; and the 
professors expect great things of him. 

He is especially studying jurisprudence, 
because his father wishes him to be a great 
lawyer. This also is to be my profession, 
and his counsel, always so heartily given, is 
of the greatest use to me. 

His life is, indeed, changed since we first 
knew him at Eisenach, when Aunt Ursula 
took compassion on him, a destitute scholar, 
singing at the doors of the houses in St. 
George Street for a piece of bread. His 
father’s hard struggles to piaintain and 


raise his family have succeeded at last; he 
is now the owner of a foundry and some 
smelting furnaces, and supports Martin lib¬ 
erally at the University. The icy morning 
of Martin’s struggles seems over, and all is 
bright before him. 

Erfurt is the first University in Germany. 
Compared with it, as Martin Luther says, 
the other Universities are mere private 
academies. At present we have from a 
thousand to thirteen hundred students. 
Some of our professors have studied the 
classics in Italy, under the descendauts of 
the ancient Greeks and Romans. The Elec¬ 
tor Frederic has, indeed, lately founded a 
new University at Wittemberg, but we at 
Erfurt have little fear of Wittemberg out¬ 
stripping our ancient institution. 

The Humanists, or disciples of the ancient 
heathen learning, are in great force here, 
with Mutianus Rufus at their head. They 
meet often, especially at his house, and he 
gives them subjects for Latin versification, 
such as the praises of poverty. Martin 
Luther’s friend Spalatin joined these as¬ 
semblies; but he himself does not, at least 
not as a member. Indeed, strange things 
are reported of their converse, which make 
the names of poet and philosopher in which 
they delight very much suspected in ortho¬ 
dox circles. These ideas Mutianus and his 
friends are said to have imported with the 
classical literature from Italy. He has even 
declared and written in a letter to a friend, 
that “ there is but one God, and one god¬ 
dess, although under various forms and 
various names, as Jupiter, Sol, Apollo, 
Moses, Christ; Luna, Ceres, Proserpine, 
Telius, Mary.” But these things he warns 
his disciples not to speak of in public. 
“ They must be veiled in silence,” he says, 
“ like the Eleusinian mysteries. In the 
affairs of religion we must make use of the 
mask of fables and enigmas. Let us by the 
grace of Jupiter, that is, of the best and 
highest God, despise the lesser gods. When 
I say Jupiter, I mean Christ and the true 
God.” 

Mutianus and his friends also in their in¬ 
timate circles speak most slightingly of the 
Church ceremonies, calling the Mass a com¬ 
edy, and the holy relics ravens’ bones;* 
speaking of the service of the altar as so 
much lost time; and stigmatizing the prayers 


*That is, skeletons left on the gallows for the ra¬ 
vens to peck at. 





22 THE 80HONE ERG-COTTA FAMILY . 


at the canonical hours as a mere haying of 
hounds, or the humming, not of busy bees, 
but of lazy drones. 

If you reproached them with such irrev¬ 
erent sayings, they would probably reply 
that they had only uttered them in an eso¬ 
teric sense, and meant nothing by them. 
But when people deem it right thus to mask 
their truths, and explain away their errors, 
it is difficult to distinguish which is the 
mask and which the reality in their estima¬ 
tion. It seems to me also that they make 
mere intellectual games or exercises out of 
the most profound and awful questions. 

This probably, more than the daring 
character of their speculations, deters Mar¬ 
tin Luther from numbering himself among 
them. His nature is so reverent in spite of 
all the courage of his character. 1 think 
he would dare or suffer anything for what 
he believed true; but he cannot bear to 
have the poorest fragment of what he holds 
sacred trifled with or played with as a mere 
feat of intellectual gymnastics. 

His chief attention is at present directed, 
by his father’s especial desire,to Roman liter¬ 
ature and law, and to the study of the allego¬ 
ries and philosophy of Aristotle. He likes to 
have to do with what is true and solid: 
poetry and music are his delight and recrea¬ 
tion. * But it is in debate he most excels. A 
few evenings since, he introduced me to a 
society of students, where questions new 
and old are debated; and it was glorious to 
see how our Martin carried off the palm; 
sometimes swooping down on his opponents 
like an eagle among a flock of small birds, or 
setting down his great lion’s paw and quietly 
crushing a host of objections apparently 
unaware of the mischief he had done, until 
some feeble wail of the prostrate foe made 
him sensible of it, and he withdrew with a 
good-humored apology for having hurt any 
one’s feelings. At other times he withers 
an unfair argument or a confused statement 
to a cinder by some lightning-flash of humor 
or satire. I do not think lie is often per¬ 
plexed by seeing too much of the other side 
of a disputed question. He holds the one 
truth he is coutending for, and he sees the 
one point he is aiming at, and at that he 
charges with a force compounded of the 
ponderous weight of his will, and the elec¬ 
tric velocity of liis thoughts, crushing what¬ 
ever comes in his way, scattering whatever 
escapes right and left, and never heeding j 
how the scattered forges may reunite and 


form in his rear. He knows that if he only 
turns on them, in a moment they will dis¬ 
perse again. 

I cannot quite tell how this style of war¬ 
fare would answer for an advocate, who 
had to make the best of any cause he is 
engaged to plead. I cannot fancy Martin 
Luther quietly collecting the arguments 
from the worst side, to the end that even 
the worst side may have fair play; which 
is, I suppose, often the office of an advocate. 

No doubt, however, he will find or make 
his calling in the world. The professors and 
learned men have the most brilliant expecta¬ 
tions as to his career. And what is rare 
(they say), he seems as much the favorite of 
the students as of the professors. His na¬ 
ture is so social; his musical abilities and 
his wonderful powers of conversation make 
him popular with all. 

And yet, underneath it all, we who know 
him well can detect at times that tide of 
thoughtful melancholy which seems to lie 
at the bottom of all hearts which have 
looked deeply into themselves or into life. 

He is as attentive as ever to religion, never 
missing the daily mass. But in our private 
conversations, 1 see that his conscience is 
anything but at ease. Has he passed 
through conflicts such as mine in the forest 
on that terrible night? Perhaps through 
conflicts as much fiercer and more terrible, 
as his character is stronger and his mind 
deeper than mine. But who can tell ? What 
is the use of unfolding perplexities to each 
other, which it seems no intellect on earth 
can solve ? The- inmost recesses of the 
heart must always, 1 suppose, be a solitude, 
like that dark and awful sanctuary within 
the veil of the old Jewish temple,* entered 
only once a year, and faintly illumined by 
the light without, through the thick folds of 
the sacred veil. 

If only that solitude were indeed a holy 
of holies—or, being what it is, if we only 
need enter it once a year, and not carry about 
the consciousness of its dark secrets with us 
everywhere. But, alas! once entered we 
can never forget it. It is like the chill, 
dark crypts underneath our churches, where 
the masses for the dead are celebrated, and 
where in some monastic cjiurches the em¬ 
balmed corpses lie shrivelled to mummies, 
and visible through gratings. Through all 
the joyous festivals of the holidays above, 
the consciousness of those dark chambers 
of death below seems to creep up; like the 



FRIEDRICH'S CHRONICLE. 


23 


damps of the vaults through the incense, 
like the muffled wail of the dirges through 
the songs of praise. 

Erfurt, April , 1503. 

We are just returned from an expedition 
which might have proved fatal to Martin 
Luther. Early in the morning, three days 
since, we started to walk to Mansfeld on a 
visit to his family, our hearts as full of hope 
as the woods were full of song. We were 
armed with swords; our wallets were full; 
and spirits light as the air. Our way was 
to lie through field and forest, and then 
along the banks of the river Holme, through 
the Golden Meadow where are so many 
noble cloisters and imperial palaces. 

But we had scarcely been on our way an 
hour when Martin, by some accident, ran 
his sword into his foot. To my dismay the 
blood gushed out in a stream. He had cut 
into a main artery. I left him under the 
care of some peasants, and ran back to 
Erfurt for a physician. When he arrived, 
however, there was great difficulty in clos¬ 
ing the wound with bandages. I longed for 
Else or our mother’s skilful fingers. We 
contrived to carry him back to the city. I 
sat up to watch with him. But in the mid¬ 
dle of the night his wound burst out bleed¬ 
ing afresh. The danger was very great, 
and Martin himself giving up hope, and 
believing death was close at hand, com¬ 
mitted his soul to the blessed Mother of 
God. Merciful and pitiful, knowing sorrow, 
yet raised glorious above all sorrow, with a 
mother’s heart for all, and a mother’s claim 
on Him who is the judge of all, where 
indeed can vve so safely flee for refuge as to 
Mary ? It was edifying to see Martin’s 
devotion to her, and no doubt it was greatly 
owing to this that at length the remedies 
succeeded, the bandages closed the wound 
again, and the blood was stanched. 

Many an Ave will I say for this to the 
sweet Mother of Mercy. Perchance she may 
also have pity on me, 0 sweetest Lady, 
“ eternal daughter of the eternal Father, 
heart of the indivisible Trinity,” thou seest 
my desire to help my own care-worn mother; 
aid me, and have mercy on me, thy sinful 
child. 

Erfurt, June , 1503. 

Martin Luther has taken his first degree. 
He is a fervent student, earnest in this as in 
everything. Cicero and Virgil are his great 


companions among the Latins. He his now 
raised quite above the pressing cares of 
penury, and will probably never taste them 
more. His father is now a prosperous 
burgher of Mansfeld, and on the way to 
become burgomaster. I wish the prospects 
at my home were as cheering. A few years 
less of pinching poverty for myself seems 
to matter little, but the cares of our mother 
and Else weigh on me often heavily. It 
must be long yet before I can help them 
effectually, and meantime the bright youth 
of my little Else, and the very life of our 
toil-worn patient mother will be wearing 
away. 

For myself I can fully enter into what 
Martin says, “ The young should learn 
especially to endure suffering and want; for 
such suffering doth them no harm. It doth 
more harm for one to prosper without toil 
than it doth to endure suffering.” He says 
also, “ It is God’s way, of beggars to make 
men of power, just as he made the world 
out of nothing. Look upon the courts of 
kings and princes, upon cities and parishes. 
You will there find jurists, doctors, council¬ 
lors, secretaries, and preachers who were 
commonly poor, and always such as have 
been students, and have risen and flown so 
high through the quill that they are become 
lords.” 

But the way to wealth through the quill 
seems long; and lives so precious to me are 
being worn out meantime, while I climb to 
the point where I could help them! Some¬ 
times I wish I had chosen the calling of a 
merchant, men seem to prosper so much 
more rapidly through trade than through 
study; and nothing on earth seems to me so 
well worth working for as to lift the load 
from their hearts at home. But it is too late. 
Rolling stones gather no moss. I must go 
on now in the track I have chosen. Only 
sometimes again the fear which came over 
me on that night in the forest. It seems as 
if heaven were against me, and that it is vain 
presumption for such as I even to hope to 
benefit any one. 

Partly, no doubt, it is to the depression, 
caused by poor living, which brings these 
thoughts. Martin Luther said so to me one 
day when he found me desponding. He said 
he knew so well what it was. He had suffered 
so much from penury at Magdeburg, and at 
Eisenach had even seriously thought of giv¬ 
ing up study altogether and returning to his 
father’s calling. He is kind to me and to all 




24 


The schonberg-cotta family. 


who need, but his means do not yet allow 
him to do more than maintain himself. Or 
rather, they are not his but his father’s, and 
he feels he has no right to be generous at 
at the expense of his father’s self-denial 
and toil. 

I find life look different, I must say, after 
a good meal. But then I cannot get rid of 
the thought of the few such meals they have 
at home. Not that Else writes gloomily. 
She never mentions a thing to sadden me. 
And this week she sent me a gulden, whieh 
she said belonged to her alone, and she 
had vowed never to use unless I would 
take it. But a student who saw them lately 
said our mother looked wan and ill. And 
to increase their difficulties, a month since 
the father received into the house a little 
orphan girl, a cousin of our mother’s, called 
Eva von Schdnberg. Heaven forbid that I 
should grudge the orphan her crust, but 
when it makes a crust less for the mother 
and the little ones, it is difficult to rejoice in 
such an act of charity. 

Erfurt, July , 1503. 

T have just obtained a nomination on a 
foundation, which will, I hope, for the pre¬ 
sent at least, prevent my being any burden 
on my family for my own maintenance. 
The rules are very strict, and they are en¬ 
forced with many awful vows and oaths 
which trouble my conscience not a little, 
because, if the least detail of these rules to 
which I have sworn is even inadvertently 
omitted, I involve myself in the guilt of per¬ 
jury. However, it is a step onward in the 
way of independence; and a far heavier 
yoke might well be borne with such an 
object. 

We (the beneficiaries on this foundation) 
have solemnly vowed to observe the seven 
canonical hours, never omitting the prayers 
belonging to each. This ensures early rising, 
which is a good thing for a student. The 
most difficult to keep is the midnight hour, 
after a day of hard study; but it is no more 
than soldiers on duty have continually to 
go through. We have also to chant the 
Miserere at funerals, and frequently to hear 
the eulogy of the Blessed Virgin Mary. 
This last can certainly not be called a hard¬ 
ship, least of all to me who desire ever 
henceforth to have an especial devotion to 
Our Lady, to recite daily the Rosary, com¬ 
memorating the joys of Mary, the Salutation, 
the journey across the mountains, the birth 


without pain, the finding of Jesus in the 
Temple, and the Ascension. It is only the 
vows which make it rather a bondage But, 
indeed, in spite of all, it is a great boon. I 
can conscientiously write to Else now that I 
shall not need another penny of their scanty 
store, and can even by the next opportunity 
return what she sent, which, happily, I 
have not yet touched. 

August , 1503. 

Martin Luther is very dangerously ill; 
many of the professors and students are in 
great anxiety about him. He has so many 
friends; and no wonder! He is no cold 
friend himself, and all expect great honor 
to the University from his abilities. I 
scarcely dare to think what his loss would 
be to me. But this morning an aged priest 
who visited him inspired us with some hope. 
As Martin lay, apparently in the last ex¬ 
tremity, and himself expecting death, this 
old priest came to his bedside, and said 
gently but in a firm tone of conviction,— 

“Be of good comfort, my brother, you 
will not die at this time; God will yet make 
a great man of you, who shall comfort 
many others. Whom God lovetli and pro- 
poseth to make a blessing, upon him he 
early layeth the cross, and in that school, 
wdio patiently endure learn much.” 

The words came with a strange kind of 
power, and I cannot help thinking that 
there is a little improvement in the patient 
since they were uttered. Truly, good 
words are like food and medicine to body 
and soul. 

Erfurt, August , 1503. 

Martin Luther is recovered I The Al¬ 
mighty the Blessed Mother, and all the 
saints be praised. 

The good old priest’s words have also 
brought some especial comfort to me. If it 
could only be possible that those troubles 
and cares which have weighed so heavily on 
Else’s early life and mine, are not the rod 
of anger, but the cross laid on those God 
lovetli! But who can tell ? For Else, at 
least, I will try to believe this. 

The world is wide in those days, with the 
great New World opened by the Spanish 
mariners beyond the Atlantic, and the no¬ 
ble Old World opened to students through 
the sacred fountains of the ancient classics, 
once more unsealed by the revived study of 
the ancient languages; and this new dis- 



25 


ELBE'S CHRONICLE. 


covery of printing, which will, my father 
thinks, diffuse the newly unsealed foun¬ 
tains of ancient wisdom in countless chan¬ 
nels among high and low. 

These are glorious times to live in. So 
much already unfolded to us I And who 
knows what beyond ? For it seems as if 
the hearts of men everywhere were beating 
high with expectation; as if, in these 
days, nothing were too great to anticipate, 
or too good to believe. 

It is well to encounter our dragons at the 
threshold of life; instead of at the end of 
the race—at the threshold of death; there¬ 
fore, I may well be content. In this wide 
and ever widening world, there must be 
some career for me and mine. What will 
it be? 

And what will Martin Luthers be ? Much 
is expected from him. Famous every one 
at the University says he must be. On what 
field will he win his laurels ? Will they be 
laurels or palms ? 

When I hear him in the debates of the 
students, all waiting for his opinions, and 
applauding his eloquent words, I see the 
laurel already among his black hair, wreath¬ 
ing his massive homely forehead. But 
when I remember the debate which I know 
there is within him, the anxious fervency 
of his devotions, his struggle of conscience, 
his distress at any omission of duty, and 
watch the deep melancholy look which 
there is sometimes in his dark eyes, I think 
not of the tales of the heroes, but of the 
legends of the saints, and wonder in what 
victory over the old dragon he will win his 
palm. 

But the bells are sounding for compline, 
and I must not miss the sacred hour. 


III. 

ELSE’S CHRONICLE. 

_Eisenach, 1504 . 

I cannot say that things have prospered 
much with us since Fritz left. The lumber 
room itself is changed. The piles of old 
books are much reduced, because we have 
been obliged to pawn many of them for 
food. Some even of the father’s beautiful 
models have had to be sold. It went ter¬ 
ribly to his heart. But it paid our debts. 

Our grandmother has grown a little quer¬ 


ulous at times lately. And I am so tempted 
to be cross sometimes. The boys eat so 
much, and wear out their clothes so fast. 
Indeed, I cannot see that poverty makes any 
of us any better, except it be my mother, 
who needed improvement least of all. 

September , 1504. 

The father has actually brought a new 
inmate into the house, a little girl, called 
Eva von Schonberg, a distant cousin of our 
mother. 

Last week he told us she was coming, 
very abruptly. I think he was rather afraid 
of what our grandmother would say, for we 
all know it is not of the least use to come 
round her with soft speeches. She always 
sees what you are aiming at, and with her 
keen eyes cuts straight through all your 
circumlocutions, and obliges you to descend 
direct on your point, with more rapidity 
than grace. 

Accordingly, he said, quite suddenly, one 
day at dinner,— 

“ I forgot to tell you, little mother, I have 
just had a letter from your relations in Bo¬ 
hemia. Your great-uncle is dead. His 
son, you know, died before him. A little 
orphan girl is left with no one to take care 
of her. I have desired them to send her to 
us. I could do no less. It was an act, not 
of charity, but of the plainest duty. And 
besides,” he added, apologetically, “ in the 
end it may make our fortunes. There is 
property somewhere in the family, if we 
could get it; and this little Eva is the de¬ 
scendant of the eldest branch. Indeed, I 
do not know but that she may bring many 
valuable family heirlooms with her. 

These last observations he addressed es¬ 
pecially to my grandmother, hoping there¬ 
by to make it clear to her that the act was 
one of the deepest worldly wisdom. Then 
turning to the mother, he concluded,— 

“Little mother, thou wilt find a place for 
the orphan in thy heart, and Heaven will 
no doubt bless us for it.” 

“ No doubt about the room in my daugh¬ 
ter’s heart! ” murmured our grandmother; 
“ the question, as I read it, is not about 
hearts, but about larders and wardrobes. 
And, certainly,” she added, not very pleas¬ 
antly, “ there is room enough there for any 
family jewels the young heiress may bring.” 

As usual, the mother came to the rescue. 

“ Dear grandmother,” she said, “ heaven, 
no doubt, will repay us; and besides, you 




26 


THE SCHONBERQ-COTTA FAMILY. 


know, we may now venture on a little more 
expense, since we are out of debt.” 

“ There is no doubt, I suppose,” retorted 
our grandmother, “ about heaven repaying 
you; but there seems to me a good deal of 
doubt whether it will be in current coin.” 

Then, I suppose fearing the effect of so 
doubtful a sentiment on the children, she 
added rather querulously, but in a gentler 
tone,— 

“Let the little creature come. Hoorn 
may be made for her soon in one way or 
another. The old creep out at the church¬ 
yard gate, while the young bound in at the 
front-door.” 

And in a few days little Eva came; but, 
unfortunately, without the family jewels. 
But the saints forbid I should grow merce¬ 
nary or miserly, and grudge the orphan her 
crust I 

And who could help welcoming little 
Eva ? As she lies on my bed asleep, with 
her golden hair on the pillow, and the long 
lashes shading her cheek, flushed with 
sleep and resting on her dimpled white 
hand, who could wish her away ? And 
when I put out the lamp (as I must veiy 
soon) and lie down beside her, she will half 
awake, just to nestle into my heart, and 
murmur in her sleep, “ Sweet cousin Else! ” 
And I shall no more be able to wish her 
gone than my guardian angel. Indeed I 
think she is something like one. 

She is not quite ten years old; but being 
an only child, and always brought up with 
older people, she has a quiet, considerate 
way, and a quaint, thoughtful gravity, 
which sits with a strange charm on her 
bright, innocent, child-like face. 

At first she seemed a little afraid of our 
children, especially the boys, and crept 
about everywhere by the side of my mother, 
to whom she gave her confidence from the 
beginning. She did not so immediately 
take to our grandmother, who was not very 
warm in her reception; but the second 
evening after her arrival, she deliberately 
took her little stool up to our grandmother’s 
side, and seating herself at her feet, laid 
her two little, soft hands on the dear, thin, 
old hands, and said,— 

“ You must love me, for I shall love you 
very much. You are like my great-aunt 
who died.” 

And, strange to say, our grandmother 
seemed quite flattered; and ever since they 
have been close friends. Indeed she com¬ 


mands us all, and there is not one in the 
house who does not seem to think her no¬ 
tice a favor. I wonder if Fritz would feel 
the same! 

Our father lets her sit in his printing-room 
when he is making experiments, which none 
of us ever dared to do. She perches herself 
on the window-sill, and watches him as if 
she understood it all, and he talks to her as 
if he thought she did. 

Then she has a wonderful way of telling 
the legends of the saints to the children. 
When our grandmother tells them, I think 
of the saints as heroes and warriors. When 
I try to relate the sacred stories to the little 
ones, I am afraid I make them too much 
like fairy tales. But when little Eva is 
speaking about St. Agnes or St. Catherine, 
her voice becomes soft and deep, like 
church music; and her face grave and 
beautiful, like one of the child-angels in the 
pictures; and her eyes as if they saw into 
heaven. I wish Fritz could hear her. I 
think she must be just what the saints were 
when they were little children, except for 
that strange, quiet way she has of making 
every one do what she likes. If our St. 
Elizabeth had resembled our little Eva in 
that, I scarcely think the Landgravine- 
mother would have ventured to have been 
so cruel to her. Perhaps it is little Eva who 
is to be the saint among us; and by helping 
her we may best please God, and be admitted 
at last to some humble place in heaven. 

Eisenach, December. 

It is a great comfort that Fritz writes in 
such good spirits. He seems full of hope 
as to his prospects, and already he has ob¬ 
tained a place in some excellent institution, 
where, he says, he lives like a cardinal, and 
is quite above wanting assistance from any 
one. This is very encouraging. Martin 
Luther, also, is on the way to be quite a 
great man, Fritz says. It is difficult to im¬ 
agine this; he looked so much like any one 
else, and we are all so completely at home 
with him, and he talks in such a simple, 
familiar way to us all—not in learned words, 
or about difficult, abstruse subjects, like the 
other wise men I know. Certainly it always 
interests us all to hear him, but one can 
understand all he says—even I can; so that 
it is not easy to think of him as a philoso¬ 
pher and a great man. I suppose wise men 
must be like the saints: one can only see 
what they are when they are some distance 
from us. 



ELSE’S CHRONICLE . 


27 


What kind of great man will Martin 
Luther he, I wonder? As great as our 
burgomaster, or as Master Trebonius ? 
Perhaps even greater than these; as great, 
even, as the Elector’s secretary, who came 
to see our father about his inventions. iBut 
it is a great comfort to think of it, especially 
on Fritz’s account; for 1 am sure Martin 
will never forget old friends. 

I cannotquite comprehend Eva’s religion. 
It seems to make her happy. I do not 
think she is afraid of God, or even of con¬ 
fession. She seems to enjoy going to 
church as if it were a holiday in the woods; 
and the name of Jesus seems not terrible, 
but dear, to her, as the name of the sweet 
Mother of God is to me. This is very diffi¬ 
cult to Understand. I think she is not even 
very much afraid of the judgment-day; and 
this is the reason why I think so:—The 
other night when we were both awakened 
by an awful thunder-storm, I hid my face 
under the clothes, in order not to see the 
flashes, until I heard the children crying in 
the next room, and rose, of course, to soothe 
them, because our mother had been very 
tired that day, and was, I trusted, asleep. 
When I had sung and talked to the little 
ones, and sat by them till they were asleep, 
I returned to our room, trembling in every 
limb; but I found Eva kneeling by the bed¬ 
side, with her crucifix pressed to her bosom, 
looking as calm and happy as if the light¬ 
ning flashes had been morning sunbeams. 

She rose from her knees when I entered; 
and when I was once more safely in bed, 
with my arm around her, and the storm 
had lulled a little, I said,— 

“ Eva, are you not afraid of the light¬ 
ning? ” 

“ I think it might hurt us, Cousin Else,” 
she said; “and that was the reason I was 
praying to God.” 

“But, Eva,” I said, “supposing the 
thunder should be the archangel’s voice? 
I always think every thunder-storm may be 
the beginning of the day of wrath—the 
dreadful judgment-day. What should you 
do then ? ” 

She was silent a little, and then she said,— 

“ I think I should take my crucifix and 
pray,-and try to ask the Lord Christ to re¬ 
member that he died on the cross for us 
once. I think he would take pity on us if 
we did. Besides, Cousin Else,” she added, 
after a pause, “I have a sentence which 
always comforts me. My father taught it 


me when I was a very little girl, in the 
prison, before he died. I could not remem¬ 
ber it all, but this part I have never forgotten: 
‘ God so loved the world, that he gave his 
only Son .’ There was more, which I forgot; 
but that bit I always remembered, because 
I was my father’s only child, and he loved 
me so dearly. I do not quite know all it 
means; but I know they are God’s words, 
and I feel sure it means that God loves us 
very much, and that he is in someway like 
my father.” 

“I know,” I replied, “the Creed says, 
‘ God the Father Almighty; ’ but I never 
thought that the Almighty Father meant 
anything like our own father. I thought 
it meant only that he is very great, and that 
wo all belong to him, and that we ought to 
love him. Are you sure, Eva, it means he 
loves us f ” 

“ I believe so, Cousin Else,” said Eva. 

“ Perhaps it does mean that he loves you, 
Eva,” I answered. “But you are a good 
child, and always have been, I should think; 
and we all know that God loves people who 
are good. That sentence says nothing, you 
see, about God loving people who are not 
good. It is because I am never sure that I 
am doing the things that please him, that I 
am afraid of God and of the judgment- 
day.” 

Eva was silent a minute, and then she 
said,— 

“ I wish I could remember the rest of the 
sentence. Perhaps it might tell.” 

“ Where does that sentence come from, 
Eva ?” I asked. “Perhaps we might find 
it. Do you think God said it to your father 
from heaven, in a vision or a dream, as he 
speaks to the saints ?” 

“ I think not, Cousin Else,” she replied 
thoughtfully; “ because my father said it 
was in a book, which he told me where to 
find when he was gone. But when I found 
the book, a priest took it from me, and said 
it was not a good book for little girls; and I 
never had it again. So I have only my 
sentence, Cousin Else. I wish it made you 
happy, as is does me.” 

I kissed the darling child and wished her 
good night; but I could not sleep. I wish 
I could see the book. But, perhaps, after 
all, it is not a right book; because (although 
Eva does not know it) I heard my grand¬ 
mother say her father was a Hussite, and 
died on the scaffold for believing something 
wrong. 




m 


TEE SC HONE ERG-COTTA FAMILY . 


In the morning Eva was awake before 
me. Her large dark eyes were watching 
me, and the moment I woke she said,— 

“ Cousin Else, I think the end of that 
sentence has something to do with the cru¬ 
cifix; because I always'think of them to¬ 
gether. You know the Lord Jesus Christ 
is Cod’s only Son, and he died on the cross 
for us.” 

And she rose and dressed, and said she 
would go to matins and say prayers for me, 
that I might not be afraid in the next thun¬ 
der-storm. 

It must be true, I am sure, that the Cross 
and the blessed Passion were meant to do 
us some good; but then they can only do 
good to those who please Cod., and that is 
precisely what it is so exceedingly difficult 
to find out how to do. 

I cannot think, however, that Eva can in 
any way be believing wrong, because she is 
so religious and so good. She attends most 
regularly at the confessional, and is always 
at church at the early mass, and many 
times besides. Often, also, I find her at 
her devotions before the crucifix and the 
picture of the Holy Virgin and Child in our 
room. She seems really to enjoy being relig¬ 
ious, as they say St. Elizabeth did. 

As for me, there is so very much to do 
between the printing, and the house, and 
our dear mother’s ill-health, and the baby, 
and the boys, who tear their clothes in such 
incomprehensible ways, that I feel more 
and more how utterly hopeless it is for me 
ever to be like any of the saints—unless, 
indeed, it is St. Christopher, whose legend 
is often a comfort to me, as our grand¬ 
mother used to tell it to us, which was in 
this way:— 

Offerus was a soldier, a heathen, who 
lived in the land of Canaan. He had a body 
twelve ells long. He did not like to obey, 
but to command. He did not care what 
harm he did to others, but lived a very wild 
life, attacking and plundering all who came 
in his way. He only wished for one thing 
—to sell his services to the Mightiest; and 
as he heard that the emperor was in those 
days the head of Christendom, lie said, 
“Lord Emperor, will you have me? To 
none less will I sell my heart’s blood.” 

The emperor looked at his Samson 
strength, his giant chest, and his mighty 
fists, and he said, “ If thou wilt serve me 
for ever, Offerus, I will allow it.” 

Immediately the giant answered, “To 


serve you for ever is not so easily promised; 
but as long as I am your soldier, none in 
east or west shall trouble you.” 

Thereupon he went with the emperor 
through all the land, and the emperor was 
delighted with him. All the soldiers, in the 
combat as at the wine-cup, were miserable, 
helpless creatures compared with Offerus. 

Now the emperor had a harper who sang 
from morning till bed time; and whenever the 
emperor was weary with the march this min¬ 
strel had to touch his harp-strings. Once, at 
even-tide, they pitched the tents near a 
forest. The emperor ate and drank lustily; 
the minstrel sang a merry song. But as, in 
his song, he spoke of the evil one,the emperor 
signed the cross on his forehead. Said 
Offerus aloud to his comrades, “What is 
this ? What jest is the prince making now?” 
Then the emperor said, “ Offerus, listen: I 
did it on account of the wicked fiend, who 
is said often to haunt this forest with great 
rage and fury.” That seemed marvellous 
to Offerus, and he said, scornfully, to the 
emperor, “I have a fancy for wild boars and 
deer. Let us hunt in this forest.” The 
emperor said softly. “ Offerus, no! Let 
alone the chase in this forest, for in filling 
thy larder thou mightest harm thy soul.” 
Then Offerus made a wry face, and said, 
“ The grapes are sour; if your highness is 
afraid of the devil, I will enter the service 
of this lord, who is mightier than you.” 
Thereupon he coolly demanded his pay, 
took his departure, with no very ceremoni¬ 
ous leave-taking, and strode off cheerily into 
the thickest depths of the forest. 

In a wild clearing of the forest he found 
the devil’s altar, built of black cinders; and 
on it, in the moonlight, gleamed the white 
skeletons of men and horses. Offerus was 
in no way terrified, but quietly inspected 
the skulls and bones; then he called three 
times in a loud voice on the evil one, and 
seating himself fell asleep, and soon began 
to snore. When it was midnight, the earth 
seemed to crack, and on a coal-black horse 
he saw a pitch-black rider, who rode at him 
furiously, and sought to bind him with 
solemn promises. But Offerus said, “We 
shall see.” Then they went together 
through the kingdoms of the world, and 
Offerus found him a better master than the 
emperor;—needed seldom to polish his ar¬ 
mor, but had plenty 7 of feasting and fun. 
However, one day as they went along the 
high-road, three tall crosses stood before 




BLSE'S CHRONICLE ?. 


them. Then the Black Prince suddenly had 
a cold and said, “ Let us creep round by the 
bye-road.” Said Offerus, “ Methinks you 
are afraid of those gallowses,” and, drawing 
his bow, he shot an arrow into the middle 
cross. “What bad manners!” said Satan, 
softly; “ do you not know that He who in 
his form as servant is the son of Mary, 
now exercises great power?” “If that is 
the case,” said Offerus, “ I came to you fet¬ 
tered by no promise; now I will seek further 
for the Mightiest, whom only I will serve.” 
Then Satan went off with a mocking laugh, 
and Offerus went on his way, asking every 
traveller he met for the Son of Mary. But, 
alas! few bore him in their hearts, and no 
one could tell the giant where the Lord 
dwelt, until one evening Offerus found an 
old pious hermit, who gave him a night’s 
lodging in his cell, and sent him the next 
morning to the Carthusian cloister. There 
the lord prior listened to Offerus, showed 
him plainly the path of faith, and told him 
lie must fast and pray, as John the Baptist 
did of old in the wilderness. But he replied, 
“Locusts and wild honey, my lord, are quite 
contrary to my nature, and I do not know any 
prayers. I should lose my strength alto¬ 
gether, and had rather not go to heaven at 
all than in that way.” “ Reckless man !” 
said the prior. “ However, you may try 
another way: give yourself up heartily to 
achieve some good work.” “Ah! let me 
hear,” said Offerus; “ I have strength for 
that.” “ See, there flows a mighty river, 
which hinders pilgrims on their way to 
Rome. It has neither ford nor bridge. 
Carry the faithful over on thy back.” “ If 
I can please the Saviour in that way, will¬ 
ingly will I carry the travellers to and fro,” 
replied the giant. And thereupon he built 
a hut of reeds, and dwelt thenceforth 
among the water-rats and beavers on the 
borders of the river, carrying pilgrims over 
the river cheerfully, like a camel or an ele¬ 
phant. But if any one offered him ferry- 
money, he said, “ I labor for eternal life.” 
And when now, after many years, Offerus’s 
hair had grown white, one stormy night a 
plaintive little voice called to him, “ Dear, 
good, tall Offerus, carry me across.” 
Offerus was tired and sleepy, but he 
thought faithfully of Jesus Christ, and with 
weary arms seizing the pine trunk which 
was his staff when the floods swelled high, 
he waded through the water and nearly 
reached the opposite bank; but he saw no 


2d 

pilgrim there, so he thought, “ I was 
dreaming,” and went back and lay down to 
sleep again. But scarcely had he fallen 
asleep when again came the little voice, 
this time very plaintive and touching, 
“Offerus, good, dear, great, tall Offerus, 
carry me across.” Patiently the old giant 
crossed tlm river again, but neither man nor 
mouse was to be seen, and he went back 
and lay down again, and was soon fast 
asleep; when once more came the little 
voice, clear and plaintive, and imploring. 
“Good, dear, giant Offerus, carry me 
across.” The third time he seized his pine- 
stem and went through the cold river. 
This time he found a tender, fair little boy, 
with golden hair. In his left hand was the 
standard of the Lamb: in his right, the 
globe. He looked at the giant with eyes 
full of love and trust, and Offerus lifted him 
up with two fingers; but, when he entered 
the river, the little child weighed on him 
like a ton. Heavier and heavier grew the 
weight, until the water almost reached his 
chin; great drops of sweat stood on his 
brow, and he had nearly sunk in the 
stream with the little one. However, he 
struggled through, and tottering to the 
other side, set the child gently down on 
the bank, and said, “ My little lord, 
prithee, come not this way again, for 
scarcely have I escaped this time with life.” 
But the fair child baptized Offerus on the 
spot, and said to him, “Know all thy sins 
are forgiven; and although thy limbs tot¬ 
tered, fear not, nor marvel, but rejoice; 
thou hast carried the Saviour of the world ! 
For a token, plant thy pine-trunk, so long 
dead and leafless, in the earth; to-morrow 
it shall shoot out green twigs. And hence¬ 
forth thou shalt be called not Offerus, but 
Christopher.” Then Christopher folded his 
hands and prayed and said, “ I feel my end 
draws nigh. My limbs tremble; my 
strength fails; and God has forgiven me all 
my sins.” Thereupon the child vanished 
in light; and Christopher set his staff in the 
earth. And so on the morrow, it shot out 
green leaves and red blossoms like an 
almond. And three days afterwards the 
angels carried Christopher to Paradise. 

This is the legend which gives me more 
hope than any other. How sweet it would 
be, if, when I tried in some humble way 
to help one and another on the way to the 
Holy City, when the last burden was 
borne, and the strength was failing, the 





go 


THE SCHONBERG-COTTA FAMILY. 


Holy Child should appear to me and say, 
t: Little Else, you have done the work I 
meant you to do—your sins are forgiven;” 
and then the angels were to come and take 
me up in their arms, and carry me across 
the dark river, and my life were to grow 
young and bloom again in Paradise, like St. 
Christopher’s withered staff 1 

But to watch all the long days of life by 
the river, and carry the burdens, and not 
know if we are doing the right thing after 
all—that is what is so hard ! 

Sweet, when the river was crossed, to 
find that in fulfilling some little, humble, 
everyday duty, one has actually been serv¬ 
ing and pleasing the Mightiest, the Saviour 
of the world. But if one could only know 
it whilst one was struggling through the 
flood, how delightful that would be ! How 
little one would mind the icy water, or the 
aching shoulders, or the tottering, failing 
limbs! 


IV. 

ELSE’S CHRONICLE CONTINUED. 

Eisenach, January , 1505. 

Fritz is at home with us again. He 
looks as much a man now as our father, 
with his moustache and his sword. How 
cheerful the sound of his firm step and his 
deep voice makes the house ! When I look 
at him sometimes, as he tosses the children 
and catches them in his arms, or as he 
flings. the balls with Christopher and 
Pollux, or shoots with bow and arrows in 
the evenings at the city games, my old 
wisli recurs that he had lived in the days 
when our ancestors dwelt in the castles in 
Bohemia, and that Fritz had been a knight, 
to ride at the head of his retainers to battle 
for some good cause,—against the Turks, 
for instance, who are now, they say, 
threatening the Empire, and all Christen¬ 
dom. My little world at home is wide 
indeed, and full enough for me, but this 
burgher life seems narrow and poor for 
him. 1 should like him to have to do with 
men instead of books. Women can read, 
and learn, and think, if thejr have time 
(although, of course, not as well as men 
can); I have even heard of women writ¬ 
ing books. St. Barbara and St. Catherine 
understood astronomy, and astrology, and 
philosophy, and could speak I do not know 


how many languages. But they could not 
have gone forth armed with shield and 
spear like St. George of Cappadocia, to de¬ 
liver the fettered princess and slay the great 
African dragon. And I should like Fritz 
to do what women can not do. There is 
such strength in his light, agile frame, and 
such power in his dark eyes; although, cer¬ 
tainly, after all he had written to us about 
his princely fare at the House at Erfurt, 
where he is a beneficiary, our mother and I 
did not expect to have seen his face looking 
so hollow and thin. 

He has brought me back my godmother’s 
gulden. He says he is an independent man, 
earning his own livelihood, and quite above 
receiving any such gratuities. However, as 
I devoted it to Fritz I feel I have a right to 
spend it on him, which is a great comfort, 
because I can provide a better table than 
we can usually afford, during the few days 
he will stay with us, so that he may never 
guess how pinched we often are. 

I am ashamed of myself, but there is 
something in this return of Fritz which dis¬ 
appoints me. 1 have looked forward to it 
day and night through all these two years 
with such longing. I thought we should 
begin again exactly where we left off. I 
pictured to myself the old daily life with 
him going on again as of old. I thought of 
our sitting in the lumber-room, and chatting 
over all our perplexities, our own and the 
family’s, pouring our hearts into each other 
without reserve or fear, so that it was 
scarcely like talking at all, but like thinking 
aloud. 

And, now, instead of our being acquaint¬ 
ed with every detail of each other’s daily 
life, so that we are aware what we are feel¬ 
ing without speaking about it, there is a 
whole history of new experience to be nar¬ 
rated step by step, and we do not seem to 
know where to begin. None of the others 
can feel this as I do. He is all to the chil¬ 
dren and our parents that he ever was, and 
why should I expect more? Indeed, 1 
scarcely know what I did expect, or what I 
do want. Why should Fritz be more to me 
than to any one else ? It is selfish to wish 
it, and it is childish to imagine that two 
years could bring no change. Could 1 have 
wished it ? Did 1 not glory in his strength, 
and in his free and manly bearing ? And 
could I wish a student at the great Univer¬ 
sity of Erfurt, who is soon to be a Bachelor 
of Arts, to come and sit on the piles of old 





ELSSTS CHRONICLE . 


31 


books in our lumber-room, and to spend his 
time in gossiping with me? Besides, what 
have I to say ? And yet, this evening, when 
the twilight-hour came round for the third 
time since he returned, and he seemed to 
forget all about it, I could not help feeling 
troubled, and so took refuge here by my¬ 
self. 

Fritz has been sitting in the family-room 
for the last hour, with all the children round 
him, telling them histories of what the 
students do at Erfurt; of their poetical 
club, where they meet and recite their own 
verses, or translations of the ancient books 
which have been unburied lately, and yet 
are fresher, he says, than any new ones, 
and set every one thinking; of the debating 
meeting, and the great singing parties, 
where hundreds of voices join, making 
music fuller than any organ,—in both of 
which Martin Luther seems a leader and a 
prince; and then of the lights among the 
students, in which 1 do not think Martin 
Luther has joined, but which, certainly, in¬ 
terest Christopher and Pollux more than 
anything else. The boys were standing on 
each side of Fritz, listening with wide-open 
eyes; Chriemhild and Atlantis had crept 
close behind him with their sewing; little 
Thekla was on his knee, playing with his 
sword-girdle; and little Eva was perched in 
her favorite place on the window-sill, in 
front of him. At first she kept at a distance 
from him, and said nothing; not, I think, 
from shyness, for I do not believe that child 
is afraid of any one or any thing, but from 
a quaint way she has of observing people, 
as if she were learning them through like a 
new language, or like a sovereign making 
sure of the character of ar new subject be¬ 
fore she admits him into her service. The 
idea of the little creature treating our Fritz 
in that grand style ! But it is of no use re¬ 
sisting it. He has passed through his proba¬ 
tion like the rest of us, and is as much 
flattered as the grandmother, or any of us, 
at being admitted into her confidence. 
When I left, Eva, who had been listening 
for some time with great attention to his 
student-stories, had herself become the 
chief speaker, and the whole party were at¬ 
tending with riveted interest while she re¬ 
lated to them her favorite Legend of St. 
Catherine. They had all heard it before, 
but in some way when Eva tells these his¬ 
tories they always seem new. I suppose jt 
is because she believes them so fervently; it 


is not as if she were repeating something 
she had heard, but quietly narrating some¬ 
thing she has seen, much as one would 
imagine an angel might who had been 
watching unseen while it all happened. 
And, meantime, her eyes, when she raises 
them, with their fringe of long lashes, seem 
to look at once into your heart and into 
heaven. 

No wonder Fritz forgets the twilight-hour. 
But it is strange he has never once asked 
about our chronicle. Of that, however, I 
am glad, because I would not for the world 
show him the narrative of our struggles. 

Can it be possible I am envious of little 
Eva, dear, little, loving, orphan Eva? I do 
rejoice that all the-world should love him. 
Yet, it was so happy to be Fritz’s only 
friend; and why should a little stranger 
child steal my precious twilight-liour from 
me ? 

Well, I suppose Aunt Agnes was right, 
and I made an idol of Fritz, and God was 
angry, and I am being punished. But the 
saints seemed to find a kind of sacred pleas¬ 
ure in their punishments, and I do not; 
nor do I feel at all the better for them, but 
the worse, which is another proof how alto¬ 
gether hopeless it is for me to try to be a 
saint, 

Eisenach, February. 

As I wrote those last words in the deep¬ 
ening twilight, two strong hands were laid 
very gently on my shoulder, and a voice 
said,— 

“Sister Else, why can you not show me 
your chronicle? ” 

I could make no reply. 

“You are convicted,” rejoined the same 
voice. 

*• Do you think I do not know where that 
gulden came from? Let me see your god¬ 
mother’s purse.” 

I began to feel the tears choking me; but 
Fritz did not seem to notice them. 

“Else,” he said, “ you may practice your 
little deceptive arts on all the rest of the 
family, but they will not do with me. Do 
you think you will ever persuade me you 
have grown thin by eating sausages and 
cakes and wonderful holiday puddings 
every day of your life ? Do you think the 
hungry delight in the eyes of those boys 
was occasioned by their everyday, ordinary 
fare? Do you think,” he added, taking my 
hands in one of his, “1 did not see how 
blue and cold, and covered with chilblains 






32 THE SCHONBERG- 

these little hands were, which piled up the 
great logs on the hearth when 1 came in this 
morning ? ” 

Of course I could do nothing but put my 
head on his shoulder and cry quietly. It 
was of no use denying anything. Then he 
added rapidly, in a low deep, voice,— 

“Do you think I could help seeing our 
mother at her old devices, pretending she 
had no appetite, and liked nothing so much 
as bones and sinews ? ” 

“Oh, Fritz,” I sobbed, “ I cannot help it. 
What am I to do ? ” 

“ At least,” he said, more cheerfully, 

“ promise me, little woman, you will never 
make a distinguished stranger of your 
brother again, and endeavor by all kinds of 
vain and deceitful devices to draw the whole 
weight of the family cares on your own 
shoulders.” 

“ Do you think it is a sin I ought to con¬ 
fess, Fritz?” I said; “ I did not mean it 
deceitfully; but 1 am always making such 
blunders about right and wrong. What 
can I do? ” 

“Does Aunt Ursula know?” he asked 
rather fiercely. 

“ No; the mother will not let me tell any 
one. She thinks they would reflect on our 
father; and he told her only last week, he 
has a plan about a new way of smelting- 
lead, which is, I think, to turn it all into 
silver. That would certainly be a wonder¬ 
ful discovery; and he thinks the Elector 
would take it up at once, and we should 
probably have to leave Eisenach and live 
near the Electoral Court. Perhaps even 
the emperor would require us to communi¬ 
cate the secret to him, and then we should 
have to leave the country altogether; for 
you know there are great lead-mines in 
Spain; and if once people could make 
silver out of lead, it would be much easier 
and safer than going across the great ocean 
to procure the native silver from the Indian 
savages.” 

Fritz drew a long breath. 

“ And meantime?” he said. 

“ Well, meantime!” I said, “it is of 
course sometimes a little difficult to get 
on.” 

He mused a little while, and then he said: 

“Little Else, 1 have thought of a plan 
which may, I think, bring us a few guldens 
—until the process of transmuting lead 
into silver is completed.” 

“ Of course,” I said, “ after that we shall 


-COTTA FAMILY . 

want nothing, but be able to give to those 
who do want. And oh, Fritz ! how well 
we shall understand how to help people who 
are poor. Do you think that is why God 
lets us be so poor ourselves so long, and 
never seems to hear our prayers ?” 

“ It would be pleasant to think so, Else,” 
said Fritz, gravely; “ but it is very diffi¬ 
cult to understand how to please God, or 
how to make our prayers reach him at all— 
at least when we are so often feeling'and 
doing wrong.” 

It cheered me to see that Fritz does not 
despair of the great invention succeeding 
one day. He did not tell me what his own 
plan is. 

Does Fritz then also feel so sinful and so 
perplexed how to please God ? Perhaps a 
great many people feel the same. It is very 
strange. If it had only pleased God to 
make it a little plainer ! I wonder if that 
book Eva lost would tell us anything? 

After that evening the barrier between 
me and Fritz was of course quite gone, 
and we seemed closer than ever. We had 
delightful twilight talks in our lumber- 
room, and I love him more than ever. So 
that Aunt Agnes would I suppose, think 
me more of an idolater than before. But 
it is very strange that idolatry should seem 
to do me so much good. I seem to love all 
the world better for loving Fritz, and to 
find everything easier to bear, by having 
him to unburden everything on, so that I 
had never fewer little sins to confess than 
during the two weeks Frit/ was at home. 
If God had only made loving brothers and 
sisters and the people at home the way to 
please him, instead of not loving them too 
much, or leaving them all to bury one’s 
self in a cold convent, like Aunt Agnes ! 

Little Eva actually persuaded Fritz to 
begin teaching her the Latin grammar ! I 
suppose she wishes to be like her beloved 
St. Catherine, who was so learned. And 
she says all the holy books, the prayers and 
the hymns, are in Latin, so that she thinks 
it must, be a language God particularly loves. 
She asked me a few days since if they 
speak Latin in heaven. 

Of course I could not tell. I told her I 
believed the Bible was originally written in 
two other languages, the languages of the 
Greeks and the Jews, and that 1 had heard 
some one say Adam and Eve spoke the 
Jews’ language in Paradise, which I sup- 
I pose God taught them. 





ELSE’S CHRONICLE. 


33 


But I have been thinking over it since, 
and I should not wonder if Eva is right. 

Because, unless Latin is the language of 
the saints and holy angels in heaven, why 
should God wish the priests to speak it 
everywhere, and the people to say the Ave 
and Paternoster in it? We should under¬ 
stand it all so much better in German- but 
of course Latin is the language of the 
blessed saints and angels, that is a reason 
for it. If we do not always understand, 
th y do, which is a great comfort. Only I 
think it is a very good plan of little Eva’s to 
try and learn Latin; and when I have more 
time to be religious, perhaps I may try 
also. 

EXTRACTS FROM FRIEDRICH’S 
CHRONICLE. 

Erfurt, 1505. 

The University seems rather a cold 
world aftey the dear old home at Eisenach. 
But it went to my heart to see how our 
mother and Else struggle and how worn 
and thin they look. Happily for them, 
they have still hope in the great invention, 
and I would not take it away for the world. 
But meantime I must at once do something 
to help. I can sometimes save some viands 
from my meals, which are portioned out to 
us liberally, on this foundation, and sell 
them. And I can occasionally earn a little 
by copying theme3 for the richer students, 
or sermons, and postils for the monks. The 
printing press has certainly made that means 
of maintenance more precarious; but printed 
books are still very dear, and also very large, 
and the priests are often glad of small copies 
of fragments of the postils, or orations of 
the fathers, written off in a small, clear 
hand, to take with them on their circuits 
around the villages. There is also writing 
to be done for the lawyers, so that I do not 
despair of earning something; and if my 
studies are retarded a little, it does not so 
much matter. It is not for me to aspire to 
great things, unless indeed they can be 
reached by small and patient steps. 1 have 
a work to do for the family. My youth 
must be given to supporting them by the 
first means I can find. If I succeed, per¬ 
haps Christopher or Pollux will have leisure 
to aim higher than I can; or, perhaps, in 
middle or later life, I rnj^self shall have 
leisure to pursue the studies of these great 
old classics, which seem to make the horizon 


of our thoughts so wide, and the world so 
glorious and large, and life so deep. It 
would certainly be a great delight to devote 
one’s self, as Martin Luther is now able to 
do, to literature and philosophy. His 
career is opening nobly. This spring he has 
taken his degree as Master of Arts, and he 
has been lecturing on Aristotle’s physics 
and logic. He has great power of making 
dim things clear, and old things fresh. His 
lectures are crowded. He is aiso studying 
law, in order to qualify himself for some 
office in the State. His parents (judging 
from his father’s letters) seem to centre all 
their hopes in him ; and it is almost the 
same here at the University. Great things 
are expected of him ; indeed there scarcely 
seems any career that is not open to him. 
And he is a man of such heart, as well as 
intellect; that he seems to make all the 
University professors, as well ns the students, 
look on him as a kind of possession of their 
own. All seem to feel a property in his 
success. Just as it was with our little circle 
at Eisenach, so it is with the great circle at 
the University. He is our Master Martin; 
and in every step of his ascent we ourselves 
feel a little higher. I wonder, if his fame 
should indeed spread as we anticipate, if it 
will be the same one day with all Germany? 
if the whole land will say exultingly by- 
and-by— our Martin Luther? 

Not that he is without enemies; his tem¬ 
per is hot and his heart too warm for that 
negative distinction of phlegmatic negative 
natures. 

June , 1505. 

Martin Luther came to me a few days 
since, looking terribly agitated. His friend 
Alexius has been assassinated, and he takes 
it exceedingly to heart; not only, I think, 
because of the loss of one he loved, but be¬ 
cause it brings death so terribly near, and 
awakens again those questionings which 1 
know are in the depths of- his heart, as 
well as of mine, about God, and judgment, 
and the dark, dread future before us, which 
we cannot solve, yet cannot escape nor for¬ 
get. 

To-clay we met again, and he was full of 
a book he had discovered in the University 
library, where he spends most of his leisure 
hours. It was a Latin Bible, which he had 
never seen before in his life. He marvelled 
greatly to see so much more in it than in 
the Evangelia read in the churches, or in the 
Collections of Homilies. He was called 




34 


TEE SCHONBERG-COTTA FAMILY. 


away to lecture, or, he said, he could have 
read on for hours. Especially one history 
seems to have impressed him deeply. It 
was in the Old Testament. It was the story 
of the child Samuel and his mother Hannah. 
“He read it quickly through,” he said, 
“with hearty delight and joy;” and be¬ 
cause this was all new to him, he began to 
wish from the bottom of his heart that God 
would one day bestow on him such a book 
for his own. 

I suppose it is the thought of his own 
pious mother which makes this history in¬ 
terest him so peculiarly. It is indeed a 
beautiful history, as he told it me, and 
makes one almost wish one had been born 
in the times of the old Hebrew monarchy. 
It seems as if God listened so graciously 
and readily then to that poor sorrowful 
woman’s prayers. And if we could only, 
each of us, hear that voice from heaven, 
how joyful it would be to reply, like that 
blessed child, “Speak, Lord, for thy ser¬ 
vant heareth;” and then to learn, with¬ 
out possibility of mistake, what God really 
requires of each of us. I suppose, however, 
the monks do feel as sure of their vocation 
as the.holy child of old, when they leave 
home and the world for the service of the 
Church. It would be a great help if other 
people had vocations to their various works 
in life, like the prophet Samuel and (I sup¬ 
pose) the monks, that we might all go on 
fearlessly, with a firm step, each in his ap¬ 
pointed path, and feel sure that we are 
doing the right thing, instead of perhaps 
drawing down judgments on those we would 
die to serve, by our mistakes and sins. It 
can hardly be intended that all men should be 
monks and nuns. Would to heaven, there¬ 
fore, that laymen had also their vocation, 
instead of this terrible uncertainty and 
doubt that will shadow the heart at times,' 
that we may have missed our path (as I did 
that night in the snow-covered forest), and, 
like Cain, be flying from the presence of 
God, and gathering on us and ours his curse. 

July 12 , 1505 . 

There is a great gloom over the University. 
The plague is among us. Many are lying 
dead who, only last week, were full of 
youth and hope. Numbers of the profes¬ 
sors, masters and students, have fled to 
their homes, or to various villages in the 
nearest reaches of the Thiiringen forest. 
The churches are thronged at all the services. 


The priests and monks (those who remain 
in the infected city) take advantage of the 
terror the presence of the pestilence excites, 
to remind people of the more awful terrors 
of that dreadful day of judgment and wrath 
which no one will be able to flee. Women, 
and sometimes men, are borne fainting 
from the churches, and often fall at once 
under the infection, and never are seen 
again. Martin Luther seems much troubled 
in mind. This epidemic, following so close 
on the assassination of his friend, seems to 
overwhelm him. But he does not talk of 
leaving the city. Perhaps the terrors which 
weigh most on him are those the preachers 
recall so vividly to us just now, from which 
there is no flight by change of place, but 
only by change of life. During this last 
week, especially since he was exposed to a 
violent thunder-storm on the high road near 
Erfurt, he has seemed strangely altered. 
A deep gloom is on his face, and he seems 
to avoid his old friends. I have scarcely 
spoken to him. 

July 14 . 

To-day, to my great surprise, Martin has 
invited me and several other of his friends 
to meet at his rooms on the day after to¬ 
morrow, to pass a social evening in singing 
and feasting. The plague has abated; yet 
I rather wonder at any one thinking of 
merry-making yet. They say, however, 
that a merry heart is the best safeguard. 

July 17 . 

The secret of Martin Luther’s feast is 
open now. The whole University is in con¬ 
sternation. He has decided on becoming 
a monk. Many think it is a sudden impulse, 
which may yet pass away. I do not. I 
believe it is the result of the conflicts of 
years, and that lie. has only yielded, in this 
act, to convictions which have been recurring 
to him continually during all his brilliant 
University career. 

Never did he seem more animated than 
yesterday evening. The hours flew by in 
eager, cheerful conversation. A weight 
seemed removed from us. The pestilence 
was departing; the professors and students 
were returning. We felt life resuming its 
old course, and ventured once more to look 
forward with hope. Many of us had com¬ 
pleted our academical course, and were 
already entering the larger world beyond— 
the university of life. Some of us had ap¬ 
pointments already promised and most of 



FRIEDRICH'S CHRONICLE. 


35 


us had hopes of great things in the future; 
the less definite the prospects, perhaps the 
most brilliant. Martin Luther did not hazard 
any speculations as to his future career; but 
that surprised none of us. His fortune, we 
said, was insured already; and many a 
jesting claim was put in for his future 
patronage, when he should be a great man. 

We had excellent music also, as always 
at any social gathering where Martin Luther 
is. His clear, true voice was listened to 
with applause in many a well-known song, 
and echoed in joyous choruses afterward 
by the whole party. So the evening passed, 
until the University hour for repose had 
nearly arrived; when suddenly, in the 
silence after the last note of the last chorus 
had died away, he bid us all farewell; for 
on the morrow, he said, he proposed to en¬ 
ter the Augustinian monastery as a novice I 
At first, some treated this as a jest; but his 
look and bearing soon banished that idea. 
Then all earnestly endeavored to dissuade 
him from his purpose. Some spoke of the 
expectations the University had formed of 
him—others, of the career in the world 
open to him; but at all this he only smiled. 
When, however, one of us reminded him of 
his father, and the disappointment it might 
cause in his home, I noticed that a change 
came over his face, and I thought there was 
a slight quiver on his lip. But all,—friendly 
remark, calm remonstrance, fervent, affec¬ 
tionate entreaties,—all were unavailing. 

“To-day,” he said, “you see me; after 
this, you will see me no more.” 

Thus we separated. But this morning, 
when some of his nearest friends went to 
his rooms early, with the faint hope of yet 
inducing him to listen, while we pressed on 
him the thousand unanswerable arguments 
which had occurred to us since we parted 
from him, his rooms were empty, and he 
was nowhere to be found. To all our in¬ 
quiries we received no reply but that Mas¬ 
ter Martin had gone that morning, before it 
was light, to the Augustinian cloister. 

Thither we followed him, and knocked 
loudly at the heavy convent gates. After 
some minutes they were slightly opened, 
and a sleepy porter appeared. 

“ Is Martin Luther here?” we asked. 

“ He is here,” was the reply; not, we 
thought, without a little triumph in the tone. 

“We wish to speak with him,” demanded 

one of us. 


“ No one is to speak with him,” was the 
grim rejoinder. 

“ Until when ?” we asked. 

There was a little whispering inside, and 
then came the decisive answer, “ Not for a 
month, at least.” 

We would have lingered to parley further, 
but the heavy nailed doors were closed 
against us, we heard the massive bolts 
rattle as they were drawn, and all our 
assaults with fists or iron staffs on the con¬ 
vent gates, from that moment did not 
awaken another sound within. 

“ Dead to the world, indeed !” murmured 
one at length; “the grave could not be 
more silent.” 

Baffled, and hoarse with shouting, we 
wandered back again to Martin Luther’s 
rooms. The old familiar rooms, where we 
had so lately spent hours with him in social 
converse; where I and many of us had 
spent so many an hour in intimate, affec¬ 
tionate intercourse,—his presence would be 
there no more; and the unaltered aspect of 
the mute, inanimate things only made the 
emptiness and change more painful by the 
contrast. 

And yet, when we began to examine more 
closely, the aspect of many things was 
changed. His flute and lute, indeed, lay 
on th3 table, just as he had ieft them on the 
previous evening. But the books—scholas¬ 
tic, legal, and classical—were piled up care¬ 
fully in one corner, and directed to the 
booksellers. In looking over tue well- 
known volumes, I only missed two, Virgil 
and Plautus; I suppose he took these with 
him. Whilst we were looking at a parcel 
neatly rolled np in another place, the old 
man who kept his rooms in order came in, 
and said, “ That is Master Martin’s master’s 
robe, his holiday attire, and his master’s 
ring. They are to be sent to his parents at 
Mansfeld.” 

A choking sensation came over me as I 
thought of the father who had struggled so 
hard to maintain his son, and had hoped 
so much from him, receiving that packet. 
Not from the dead. Worse than from the 
dead, it seemed to me. Deliberately self- 
entombed; deliberately with his own hands 
building up a barrier between him and all 
who loved him best. With the dead, if they 
are happy, we may hold communion—at 
least the Creed speaks of the communion 
of saints; we may pray to them; or, at 
the worst, we may pray for them. But 



36 


THE SCHONBERG-C0TTA FAMILY. 


between the son in the convent and the 
father at Mansfeld, the barrier is not 
merely one of stone and earth. It is of 
the impenetrable iron of will and con¬ 
science. It would be a temptation now for 
Martin Luther to pour out his heart in 
affectionate words to father, mother, or 
friend. 

And yet, if he is right,—if the flesh is 
only to be subdued, if God is onty to be 
pleased, if heaven is only to be won in this 
way, it is of little moment indeed what the 
suffering may be to us or any belonging to 
us, in this fleeting life, down which the 
grim gates of death which close it, ever cast 
their long shadow. 

May not Martin serve his family better in 
the cloister than at the emperor’s court, for 
is not the cloister the court of a palace more 
imperial?—we may say, the very audience- 
chamber of the King of kings. Besides, if 
he had a vocation, what curse might not 
follow despising it ? Happy for those 
whose vocation is so clear that they dare 
not disobey it; or whose hearts are so pure 
that they would not if they dared ! 

July 19. 

These two days the University has been 
in a ferment at the disappearance of Martin 
Luther. Many are indignant with him, 
and more with the monks, who, they say, 
have taken advantage of a fervent impulse, 
and drawn him into their net. Some, how¬ 
ever, especially those of the school of Mu- 
tianus—the Humanists—laugh, and say there 
are ways through the cloister to the court,— 
and even to the tiara. But those misunder¬ 
stand Martin. We who know him are only 
too sure that he will be a true monk and 
that for him there is no gate from the 
cloister to the world. 

It appears now that he had been meditat¬ 
ing this step more than a fortnight. 

On the first of this month (July) he was 
walking on the road between Erfurt and 
Stotterheim, when a thunderstorm, which 
had been gathering over the Thuringen 
forest, and weighing with heavy silence on 
the plague-laden air, suddenly burst over 
his head. He was alone, and far from 
shelter. Peal followed peal, succeeded by 
terrible silences; the forked lightening 
danced wildly around him until at length 
one terrific flash tore up the ground at his 
feet, and nearly stunned him. He was 
alone, and far from shelter; he felt his 
soul alone and unsheltered. The thunder 


seemed to him the angry voice of an irresisti¬ 
ble, offended God. The next flash might 
wither his body to ashes, and smite his soul 
into the flames it so terribly recalled; and 
the next thunder-peal which followed might 
echo like the trumpet of doom over him 
lying unconscious, deaf, and mute in death. 
Unconscious and silent as to his body; but 
who could imagine to what terrible intensity 
of conscious, everlasting anguish his soul 
might have awakened; what wailings might 
echo around Lis lost spirit, what cries of 
unavailing entreaty he might be pour¬ 
ing forth 1 Unavailing then 1 not perhaps 
wholly unavailing now ! He fell on his 
knees,—he prostrated himself on the earth, 
and cried in his anguish and terror, “ Help, 
beloved St. Anne, and I will straightway 
become a monk.” 

The storm rolled slowly away; but the 
irrevocable words had been spoken, and the 
peals of thunder, as they rumbled more and 
more faintly in the distance, echoed on his 
heart like the dirge of all his worldly life. 

He reached Erfurt in safety, and, dis¬ 
trustful of his own steadfastness, breathed 
nothing of his purpose except to those who 
would, he thought, sustain him in it. This 
was no doubt the cause of his absent and 
estranged looks, and of his avoiding us dur¬ 
ing that fortnight. 

He confided his intention first to Andrew 
Staffelstein, the rector of the University, 
who applauded and encouraged him, and 
took him at once to the new Franciscan 
cloister. The monks received him with de¬ 
light, and urged his immediately joining 
their order. He told them he must first 
acquaint his father of his purpose, as an act 
of confidence only due to a parent who had 
denied himself so much and toiled so hard 
to maintain his son liberally at the Univer¬ 
sity. But the rector and the monks rejoined 
that he must not consult with flesh and 
blood; he must forsake father and mother, 
and steal away to the cross of Christ. 
“ Whoso putteth his hand to the plough 
and looketh back,” said they, “ is not 
worthy of the kingdom of God.” To 
remain in the world was peril. To return 
to it was perdition. 

A few religious women to whom the 
rector mentioned Martin’s intentions, con¬ 
firmed him in them with fervent words of 
admiration and encouragement. 

Did not one of them relent, and take 
pity on his mother and his father ? And 



FRIEDRICH'S 

yet, I doubt if Martin’s mother would have 
interposed one word of remonstrance be¬ 
tween him and the cloister. She is a very 
religious woman. To offer her son, her 
pride, to God, would have been offering the 
dearest part of herself; and women have a 
strength in self-sacrifice, and a mysterious 
joy, which I feel no doubt would have car¬ 
ried her through. 

With Martin’s father it would no doubt 
have been different. He has not a good 
opinion of the monks, and he has a very 
strong sense of paternal and filial duty. He, 
the shrewd, hard-working, successful peas¬ 
ant, looks on the monks as a company of 
drones, who, in imagining they are giving 
up the delights of the world, are often only 
givingup its duties. He was content to go 
through any self-denial and toil that Mar¬ 
tin, the pride of the whole family, might 
have room to develop his abilities. But to 
have the fruit of all liis counsel, and care, 
and work buried in a convent, will be very 
bitter to him. It was terrible advice for the 
rector to give a son. And yet, no doubt, 
God has the first claim; and to expose Mar¬ 
tin to any influence which might have in¬ 
duced him to give up his vocation, would 
have been perilous indeed. No doubt the 
conflict in Martin’s heart was severe enough 
as it was. His nature is so affectionate, his 
sense of filial duty so strong, and his honor 
and love for his parents so deep. Since the 
step is taken, Holy Mary aid him not-to 
draw back! 

December , 1505. 

This morning I saw a sight I never thought 
to have seen. A monk, in the grey frock 
and cowl of the Augustinians, was pacing 
slowly through the streets with a heavy 
sack on his shoulders. The ground was 
covered with snow, his feet were bare; but 
it was no unfrequent sight; and I was idly 
and half-unconsciously watching him pause 
at door after door, and, humbly receiving 
any contributions that were offered, stow 
them away in the convent-sack, when at 
length he stopped at the door of the house 
I was in, and then, as his face turned up 
towards the window where I stood, I caught 
the eye of Martin Luther ! 

I hurried to the door with a loaf in my 
hand, and, before offering it to him, would 
have embraced him as of old; but he bowed 
low as he received the bread, until his fore¬ 
head nearly touched the ground, and, mur¬ 


CHRONICLE. 37 

muring a Latin “ Gratias,” would have 
passed on. 

“Martin,” I said, “do you not know me ? ” 

“ 1 am on the service of the convent,” he 
said. “ It is against the rules to converse or 
to linger.” 

It was hard to let him go without another 
word. 

“God and the saints help thee, Brother 
Martin!” I said. 

He half turned, crossed himself, bowed 
low once more, as a maid-servant threw him 
some broken meat, said meekly, “God be 
praised for every gift he bestowetli,” and 
went on his toilsome quest for alms with 
stooping form and downcast eyes. But how 
changed his face was ! The flush of youth 
and health quite faded from the thin, hollow 
cheeks; the tire of witand fancy all dimmed, 
in the red, sunken eyes ! Fire there is in¬ 
deed in them still, but it seemed to me of 
the kind that consumes—not that warms 
and cheers. 

They are surely harsh to him at the con¬ 
vent. To send him who was the pride and 
ornament of the University not six months 
ago, begging from door to door, at the 
houses of friends and pupils, with whom he 
may not even exchange a greeting! Is 
there no pleasure to the obscure and igno¬ 
rant monks in thus humbling one who was so 
lately so far above them? The hands which 
wield such rods need to be guided by hearts 
that are very noble or very tender. Never¬ 
theless, I have no doubt that Brother Martin 
inflicts severer discipline on himself than 
any that can be laid on him from without. 
It is no external conflict that has thus worn 
and bowed him down in less than half a 
year. 

I fear he will impose some severe mortifi¬ 
cation on himself for having spoken those 
few words to which I tempted him. 

But if it is his vocation, and if it is for 
heaven, and if he is thereby earning merits 
to bestow on others, any conflict could no 
doubt be endured. 

July , 1506. 

Brother Martin’s noviate has expired, 
and he has taken the name of Augustine, 
but we shall scarcely learn to call him by it. 
Several of us were present a few days since 
at his taking the final vows in the Augustin- 
ian Church. Once more we heard the clear, 
pleasant voice which most of us had heard, 
in song and animated conversation, on that 
farewell evening. It sounded weak and 



88 


TEE SCEONBERG-COTTA FAMILY. 


thin, no doubt with fasting. The garb of 
the novice was laid aside, the monk’s frock 
was put on, and kneeling below the altar 
steps, witn the prior’s hands on his bowed 
head, he took the vow in Latin :— 

“ I, Brother Martin, do make profession 
and promise obedience unto Almighty God, 
unto Mary, ever Virgin, and unto thee, my 
brother, prior of this cloister, in the name 
and in the stead of the general prior of the 
order of the Eremites of St. Augustine, the 
bishop and his regular successors, to live in 
poverty and chastity after the rule of the 
said St. Augustine until death.” 

Then the burning taper, symbol of the 
lighted and ever vigilant heart, was placed 
in his hand. The prior murmured a prayer 
over him, and instantly from the whole of 
the monks burst the hymn“Veni Sancte 
Spiritus.” 

He knelt while they were singing; and 
then the monks led him up the steps into the 
choir, and welcomed him with the kiss of 
brotherhood. 

Within the screen, within the choir, 
among the holy brotherhood inside, who 
minister before the altar ! And we, his old 
friends, left outside in the nave, separated 
from him for ever by the screen of that ir¬ 
revocable vow! 

For ever 1 Is it for ever ? Will there in¬ 
deed be such a veil, an impenetrable barrier, 
between us and him at the judgment-day? 
And we outside ? A barrier impassable for 
ever then, but not now, not yet ? 

January , 1507. 

1 have just returned from another Christ¬ 
mas at home. Things look a little brighter 
there. This last year, since I took my mas¬ 
ter’s degree, I have been able to help them 
a little more effectually with the money I re¬ 
ceive from my pupils. It was a delight to 
take our dear, self-denying, loving Else a 
new dress for holidays, although she pro¬ 
tested her old crimson petticoat and black 
jacket were as good as ever. The child Eva 
has still that deep, calm, earnest look in her 
eyes, as if she saw into the world of things 
unseen and eternal, and saw there what 
filled her heart with joy. I suppose it is 
that angelic depth of her eyes, in contrast 
with the guileless, rosy smile of the child¬ 
like lips, which gives the strange charm to 
her face, and makes one think of the pic¬ 
tures of the child-angels. 

She can read the Church Latin now easily, 
and delights especially in the old hymns. 


When she repeats them in that soft, rever¬ 
ent, childish voice, they seem to me deeper 
and more sacred than when sung by the 
fullest choir. Her great favorite is St. Ber¬ 
nard’s “ Jesu Dulcis Memoria,” and his 
“Salve Caput Cruentatum; ” but some 
verses of the “Dies Irae ” also are veiy 
often on her lips. I used to hear her warb¬ 
ling softly about the house, or at her work, 
with a voice like a happy dove hidden in the 
depths of some quiet wood,— 

“Querens me sedisti lassus,” 

“Jesu mi dulcissime, Domine coelorum, 
Conditor omnipotens, Rex universorum; 

Quis jam actus sufficit mirari gestorum 
Quae te ferre compulit salus miserorum. 

“ Te de coeli caritas traxit animarum, 

Pro quibus palatium deserens prseclarum; 
Miseram ingrediens vallem lacrymarum. 

Opus durum suscipis, et iter amarum.”* 

The sonorous words of the ancient im¬ 
perial language sound so sweet and strange, 
and yet so familiar from the fresh childish 
voice, Latin seems from her lips no more 
a dead language. It is as if she had learned 
it naturally in infancy from listening to the 
songs of the angels who watched her in her 
sleep, or from the lips of a sainted mother 
bending over her pillow from heaven. 

One thing, however, seems to disappoint 
little Eva, She has a sentence taken from 
a book her father left her before he died, 
but which she was never allowed to see 
afterwards. She is always hoping to find 
the book in which this sentence was, and 
has not yet succeeded. 

I have little doubt myself that the book 
was some heretical volume belonging to 
her father, who was executed for being a 
Hussite. It is to be hoped, therefore, she 

*“ Jesu, Sovereign Loi*d of heaven, sweetest Friend 
to me, 

King of all the universe, all was made by thee; 

Who can know or comprehend the wonders thou 
hast wrought, 

Since the saving of the lost thee so low hath 
brought? 

“Thee the love of souls drew down from beyond 
the sky,— 

Drew thee from thy glorious home, thy palace 
bright and high 1 

To this narrow vale of tears thou thy footsteps 
bendest; 

Hard the wrnrk thou tak’st on thee, rough the way 
thou wendest. ” 

will never find it. She did not tell me this 
herself, probably because Else, to whom 



FRIEDRICH’S CHRONICLE. 


39 


she mentioned it, discouraged her in such 
a search. We ail feel it is a great blessing 
to have rescued that innocent heart from 
the snares of those pernicious heretics, 
against whom our Saxon nation made such 
a noble struggle. There are not very many 
of the Hussites left now in Bohemia. As 
a national party they are indeed destroyed, 
since the Calixtines separated from them. 
There are, however, still a few dragging 
out a miserable existence among the forests 
and mountains; and it is reported that these 
opinions have not yet even been quite 
crushed in the cities, in spite of the vigor¬ 
ous measures used against them, but that 
not a few secretly cling to their tenets, al¬ 
though outwardly conforming to the 
Church. So inveterate is the poison of 
hersey, and so great the danger from which 
little Eva has been rescued. 

Erfurt, May 2, 1507. 

To-day once more the seclusion and 
silence which have enveloped Martin Luther 
since lie entered the cloister have been 
broken. This day he has been consecrated 
priest, and has celebrated his first mass. 
There was a great feast at the Augustinian 
convent; offerings poured in abundance 
into the convent treasury, and Martin’s 
father, John Luther, came from Mansfeld 
to be present at the ceremony. He is 
reconciled at last to his son (whom for a 
long time he refused to see), although not, 
I believe, to his monastic profession. It is 
certainly no willing sacrifice on the father’s 
part. And no wonder. After toiling for 
years to place his favorite son in a position 
where his great abilities might have scope, 
it must have been hard to see everything 
thrown away just as success was attained, 
for what seemed to him a wilful, supersti¬ 
tious fancy. And without a word of duti¬ 
ful consultation to prepare him for the 
blow! 

„ Having, however, at last made up his 
mind to forgive his son, he forgave him like 
a father, and came in pomp with precious 
gifts to do him honor. He rode to the con¬ 
vent gate with an escort of twenty horse¬ 
men, and gave his son a present of twenty 
florins. 

Brother Martin was so cheered by the 
reconciliation, that at the ordination feast 
he ventured to try to obtain from his father 
* not only pardon, but sanction and approval. 
It was of the deepest interest to me to hear 


his familiar eloquent voice again, pleading 
for his father’s approval. But he failed. In 
vain he stated in his own fervent words the 
motives that had led to his vow; in vain did 
the monks around support and applaud all 
he said. The old man was not to he moved. 

“Dear father,” said Martin, “ what was 
the reason of thy objecting to my choice to 
become a monk ? Why wert thou then so 
displeased, and perhaps art not reconciled 
yet ? It is such a peaceful and godly life to 
live.” 

I cannot say that Brother Martin’s worn 
and furrowed face spoke much for the 
peacefulness of his life; but Master John 
Luther boldly replied in a voice that all at 
the table might hear,— 

“ Didst thou never hear that a son must 
be obedient to his parents? And, you 
learned men, did you never read the Scrip¬ 
tures, ‘ Thou shalt honor thy father and thy 
mother?’ God grant that those signs you 
speak of may not prove to be lying won¬ 
ders of Satan.” 

Brother Martin attempted no defence. A 
look of sharp pain came over his face, as if 
an arrow had pierced his heart; liut he re¬ 
mained quite silent. 

Yet he is a priest; he is endued with a 
power^ never committed even to the holy 
angels—to transubstantiate bread into God 
—to sacrifice for the living and the dead. 

He is admitted into the inner circle of the 
court of heaven. 

He is on board that sacred ark which 
once he saw portrayed at Magdeburg, where 
priests and monks sail safely amidst a drown¬ 
ing world. And what is more, he himself 
may, from his safe and sacred vessel, stoop 
down and rescue perishing men; perhaps 
confer unspeakable blessings on the soul of 
that very father whose words so wounded 
him. 

For such ends well may he bear that the 
arrow should pierce his heart. Did not a 
sword pierce thine, 0 mournful Mother of 
consolations ? 

And he is certain of his vocation. He 
does not think as we in the world so often 
must, “ Is God leading me, or the devil ? 
Am I resisting his higher calling in only 
obeying the humbler call of everyday duty? 
Am I bringing down blessings on those I 
love, or curses ?” 

Brother Martin, without question, has 
none of these distracting doubts. He may 
well bear any other anguish which may 







40 


THE 80HON BERG-COTTA FAMILY , 


meet him in the ways of God, and because 
he has chosen them. At least he has not to 
listen to such tales as I have heard lately 
from a young knight, Ulrich von Hutten, 
who is studying here at present, and has 
things to relate of the monks, priests, and 
bishops in Koine itself which tempt one to 
think all invisible things a delusion, and all 
religion a pretence. 


Y. 

ELSE’S CHRONICLE. 

Eisenach, January , 1510. 

We have passed through a terrible time; 
if, indeed, we are through it ! 

The plague has been at Eisenach; and, 
alas I is here still. 

Fritz came home to us as usual at Christ¬ 
mas. Just before he left Erfurt the plague 
had broken out in the University. But he 
did not know it. When first he came to us 
he seemed quite well, and was full of spirits, 
but on the second day he complained of 
cold and shivering, with pain in the head, 
which increased to wauls the evening. His 
eyes then began to have a fixed, dim look, 
and he seemed unable to speak or think 
long connectedly. 

I noticed that the mother watched him 
anxiously that evening, and at its close, feel¬ 
ing his hands feverish, she said very quietly 
that she should sit up in his room that night. 
At first he made some resistance, but lie 
seemed too faint to insist on anything; and, 
as he rose to go to bed, he tottered a little, 
and said he felt giddy, so that my mother 
drew his arm within hers and supported him 
to his room. 

Still I did not feel anxious; but when Eva 
and I reached our room, she said, in that 
quiet, convincing manner which she had 
even as a child, fixing her large eyes on 
mine,— 

“ Cousin Else, Fritz is very ill.” 

“ I think not, Eva,” I said; “ and no one 
would feel anxious about him as soon as I 
should. He caught a chill on his way from 
Erfurt. You know it was late when he 
arrived, and snowing fast, and he was so 
pleased to see us and so eager in conversa¬ 
tion that he would not change his things. It 
is only a slight feverish cold. Besides, our 
mother’s manner was so calm when she 
wished us good night. I do not think she is 


anxious. She is only sitting up with him 
for an hour or two to see that he sleeps,” 

“Cousin Else,” replied Eva, “did you 
not see the mother’s lip quiver when she 
turned to wish us good-night ?” 

“No, Eva,” said I; “I was looking at 
Fritz.” 

And so we went to bed. But I thought it 
strange that Eva, a girl of sixteen, should 
be more anxious than I was, and I his sister. 
Hope is generally so strong, and fear so 
weak, before one has seen many fears real¬ 
ized, and many hopes disappointed. Eva, 
however, had always a way of seeing into 
the truth of things. I was very tired with 
the day’s work (for I always rise earlier than 
usual when Fritz is here, to get everything 
done before he is about), and 1 must very 
soon have fallen asleep. It was not mid¬ 
night when I was roused by the mother’s 
touch upon my arm. 

The light of the lamp she held showed 
me a paleness in her face and an alarm in 
her eyes which awoke me thoroughly in an 
instant. 

“ Else,” she said, “ go into the boys' room 
and send Christopher fora physician. I can¬ 
not leave Fritz. But do not alarm your 
father,” she added, as she crept again out 
of the room after lighting our lamp. 

I called Christopher, and in five minutes 
he was dressed and out of the house. When 
I returned to our room Eva was sitting 
dressed on the bed. She had not been 
asleep, I saw. I think she had been praying, 
for she held the crucifix in her clasped 
bauds, and there were traces of tears on her 
cheek, although, when she raised her eyes 
to me, they were clear and tearless. 

“What is it, cousin Else?” she said. 
“ When I went for a moment to the door of 
his room he was talking. It was his voice, 
but with such a strange, wild tone in it. I 
think he heard my step, although I thought 
no one would, I stepped so softly, for lie 
called ‘ Eva, Eva ! ’ but the mother came to 
the door and silently motioned me away. 
But you may go, Else,” she added, with a 
passionate rapidity very unusual with her. 
“ Go and see him.” 

I went instantly. He was talking very 
rapidly and vehemently, and in an incoher¬ 
ent way it was difficult to understand. My 
mother sat quite still, holding his hand. His 
eyes were not bright as in fever, but dim 
and fixed. Yet he was in a raging fever. 
His hand, when I touched it, burned like 





ELSE’S CHRONICLE. 


41 


fire, and his face was flushed like crimson. 
I stood there quite silently beside my mother 
until the physician came. At first Fritz’s 
eyes followed me; then they seemed watch¬ 
ing the door for some one else; but in a few 
minutes the dull vacancy came over them 
again, and he seemed conscious of nothing. 

At last the physician came. He paused a 
moment at the door, and held a bag of 
myrrh before him; then advancing to the 
bed, he drew aside the clothes and looked at 
Fritz’s arm. 

“Too plain I” he exclaimed, starting 
back as he perceived a black swelling there. 
“ It is the plague ! ” 

My mother followed him to the door. 

“ Excuse me, madam,” he said, “ life is 
precious, and I might carry the infection 
into the city.” 

“ Can nothing be done ? ” she said. 

“ Not much,” he said bluntly; and then, 
after a moment’s hesitation, touched by the 
distress in her face, he returned to the bed¬ 
side. “ 1 have touched him,” he murmured, 
as if apologizing to himself for incurring 
the risk, “ the mischief is done, doubtless, 
already.” And taking out his lancet, he 
bled my brother’s arm. 

Then, after binding up the arm, he turned 
to me and said, “ Get cypress and juniper 
wood, and burn them in a brazier in this 
room, with rosin and myrrh. Keep your 
brother as warm as possible—do not let in a 
breath of air; ” and he added, as I followed 
him to the door, “ on no account suffer him 
to sleep for a moment, and let no one come 
near him but you and your mother.” 

When I returned to the bedside, after 
obeying these directions, Fritz’s mind was 
wandering; and although we could under¬ 
stand little that he said, he was evidently in 
great distress. He seemed to have compre¬ 
hended the physician’s words, for he fre¬ 
quently repeated, “The plague ! the plague! 
I have brought a curse upon my house ! ” 
and then he would wander, strangely call¬ 
ing upon Martin Luther and Eva to intercede 
and obtain pardon for him, as if he was in¬ 
voking saints in heaven; and occasionally 
he would repeat fragments of Latin hymns. 

It was dreadful to have to keep linn 
awake; to have to rouse him. whenever he 
showed the least symptom of slumber, to 
thoughts which so perplexed and troubled 
his poor brain. But on the second night 
the mother fainted away, and I had to carry 
her to her room. Her dear thin frame was 


no heavy weight to bear. I laid her on the 
bed in our room, which was the nearest. 
Eva appeared at the door as I stood beside 
our mother. Her face was as pale as death. 
Before I could prevent it, she came up to 
me, and taking my hands said,— 

“Cousin Else, only promise me one 
thing;—if he is to die let me see him once 
more.” 

“ I dare not promise anything, Eva,” I 
said; “ consider the infection ! ” 

“ What will the infection matter to me if 
he dies?” she said; “I am not afraid to 
die.” 

“ Think of the father and the children, 
Eva,” I said; “if our mother and I should 
be seized next, what would they do ?” 

“ Chriemhild will soon be old enough to 
take care of them,” she said very calmly, 
“promise me, promise me, Else, or I will see 
him at once.” 

And I promised her, and she threw her 
arms around me, and kissed me. Then I 
went back to Fritz, leaving Eva chafing my 
mother’s hands. It was of no avail, \ 
thought, to try to keep her from contagion, 
now that she had held my hands in hers. 

When I came again to Fritz’s bedside, he 
was asleep ! Bitterly I reproached myself; 
but what could I have done ? He was 
asleep—sleeping quietly, with soft, even 
breathing. I had not courage to awake 
him; but I knelt down and implored the 
blessed Virgin and all the saints to have 
mercy on me, and spare him. And they 
must have heard me; for in spite of my 
failure in keeping the physician’s orders, 
Fritz began to recover from that very 
sleep. 

Our grandmother says it was a miracle ; 
“unless,” she added, “the doctor was 
wrong.” 

He awoke from that sleep refreshed and 
calm, but weak as an infant. 

It was delightful to meet his eyes when 
first he awoke, with the look of quiet 
recognition in them, instead of that wild, 
fixed stare, or that restless wandering, to 
look once more into his heart through his 
eyes. He looked at me a long time with a 
quiet content, without speaking, and then 
he said, holding out his hand to me,— 

“ Else, you have been watching long 
here. You look tired ; go and rest.” 

“ It rests me best to look at you,” I said, 
“ and see you better.” 

He seemed too weak to persist, and after 




42 


THE SCIIONBERG-COTTA FAMILY. 


taking some food and cooling drinks, he 
fell asleep again, and so did I; for the 
next tiling I was conscious of was our 
mother gently placing a pillow underneath 
my head, which had sunk on the bed 
where I had been kneeling, watching Fritz. 
I was ashamed of being such a bad nurse; 
but our mother insisted on my going to our 
room to seek rest and refreshment. And 
for the next few days we took it in turns to 
sit beside him, until he began to gain 
strength. Then we thought he might like 
to see Eva; but when she came to the door, 
he eagerly motioned her away, and said,— 

‘ * Do not let her venture near me. Think 
if I were to bring this judgment of God on 
her! ” 

Eva turned away, and was out of sight 
in an instant; but the troubled, perplexed 
expression came back into my brother’s 
eyes, and the feverish flush into his face, 
and it was long before he seemed calm 
again. 

I followed Eva. She was sitting with 
clasped hands in our room. 

“ Oh, Else/’ she said, “ how altered he is ! 
Are you sure he will live even now ?” 

I tried to comfort her with the hope 
which was naturally so much stronger in me, 
because I had seen him in the depths from 
which he was now slowly rising again to 
life. But something in that glimpse of him 
seemed to weigh on her very life; and as 
Fritz recovered, Eva seemed to grow paler 
and weaker, until the same feverish symp¬ 
toms came over her which we had learned 
so to dread, and then the terrible tokens, 
the plague-spots, which could not be doubt¬ 
ed, appeared or,the fair soft arms, and Eva 
was laying with those dim, fixed, pestilence- 
veiled eyes, and the wandering brain. 

For a day we were able to conceal it from 
Fritz, but no longer. 

On the second evening after Eva was 
stricken, I found him standing by the 
window of his room, looking into the street. 
I shall never forget the expression of 
horror in his eyes as he turned from the 
window to me. 

“ Else,” he said, “ how long have those 
fires been burning in the streets?” 

“ For a week,” 1 said. “ They are fires 
of cypress-wood and juniper, with myrrh 
and pine gums. The physicians say they 
purify the air.” 

“ I know too well what they are,” he 


said. “And Else,” he said, “why is 
Master Biirer’s house opposite closed ?” 

“ He has lost two children,” I said. 

“And why are those other windows 
closed all down the street ?” he rejoined. 

“ The people have left, brother,” I said ; 
“ but the doctors hope the worst is over 
now.” 

“ 0 just God!” he exclaimed, sinking on 
a chair and covering his face; “I was 
flying from thee, and I have brought the 
curse on my people !” 

Then, after a minute’s pause, before I 
could think of any words to comfort him, 
he looked up, and suddenly demanded— 

“ Who are dead in this house, Else ?” 

“ None, none,” I said. 

“ Who are stricken?” he asked. 

“ All the children and the father are 
well,” I said, “ and the mother,” 

“ Then Eva is stricken,” he exclaimed— 
“the innocent for the guilty! She will die 
and be a saint in heaven, and I, who have 
murdered her, shall live, and shall see her 
no more for ever and for ever.” 

I could not comfort him. The strength 
of his agony utterly stunned me. 1 could 
only burst into tears, so that he had to try 
to comfort me. But he did not speak; he 
only took my hands in his kindly, as of old, 
without saying another word. At length I 
said— 

“It is not you who brought the plague, 
dear Fritz; it is God who sent it.” 

“I know it is God,” he replied, with 
such an intense bitterness in his tone that I 
did not attempt another sentence. 

That night Eva wandered much as I 
watched beside her; but her delirium was 
quite different from that of Fritz. Her 
spirit seemed floating away on a quiet 
stream into some happy land we could not 
see. She spoke of a palace, of a home, of 
fields of fragrant lilies, of white-robed 
saints walking among them with harps and 
songs, and of One walking there, who 
welcomed her. Occasionally, too, she mur¬ 
mured snatches of the same Latin hymns 
that Fritz had repeated in his delirum, but 
in a tone so different, so child-like and 
happy! If ever she appeared troubled, it 
was when she seemed to miss some one, 
and be searching here and there for them; 
but then she often ended with, “Yes, I 
know they will come; I must wait till they 
come.” And so at last she fell asleep, as if 
the thought had quieted her. 





48 


FRIEDRICH'S STORY. 


I could not hinder her sleeping, whatever 
the physician said—she looked so placid, 
and had such a happy smile on her lips. 
Only once, when she had lain thus an hour 
quite still, while her chest seemed scarcely 
to heave with her soft, tranquil breathing, 
I grew alarmed lest she should glide thus 
from us into the arms of the holy angels; 
and 1 whispered softly, “ Eva, dear Eva !” 

Her lips parted slightly, and she mur¬ 
mured— 

“ Not yet; wait till they come.” 

And then she turned her head again on 
the pillow, and slept on. She awoke quite 
collected and calm, and then she said 
quietly, “ Where is the mother ?” 

“ She is resting, darling Eva.” 

She gave a little contented smile, and 
then, in broken words at intervals, she said— 

“ Now, I should like to see Fritz. You 
promised I should see him again; and now, 
if I die, I think he would like to see me 
once more.” 

I went to fetch my brother. He was 
pacing up and down his room, with the 
crucifix clasped to his breast. At first, to 
my surprise, he seemed very reluctant to 
come; but when I said how much she 
wished it, he followed me quite meekly 
into her room. Eva was resuming her old 
command over us all. She held out her 
hand, with a look of such peace and rest on 
her face. 

“ Cousin Fritz,” she said at intervals, as 
she had strength, “you have taught me so 
many things—you have done so much for 
me. Now i wish you to learn my sentence, 
that if I go, it may make you happy, as it 
does me.” Then very slowly and distinctly 
she repeated the words—“ ‘ God so loved 
the world that he gave his only Son.' 
Cousin Fritz,” she added, “I do not know 
the end of the sentence. I have not been 
able to find it, but you must find it. I am 
sure it comes from a good book, it makes 
me love God so much to think of it. Prom¬ 
ise me you will find it if I should die.” 

He promised, and she was quite satisfied. 
Her strength seemed exhausted, and in a 
few moments, with my arms round her as I 
sat beside her, and with her hand in Fritz's, 
she fell into a deep, quiet sleep. 

I felt from that time she wonld not die, 
and I whispered very softly to Fritz— 

“ She will not die; slip will recover, and 
you will not have killed her; you will have 
saved her.” 


But when I looked into his face, expect¬ 
ing to meet a thankful, happy response, I 
was appalled by the expression there. 

He stood immovable, not venturing to 
withdraw his hand, but with a rigid, hope¬ 
less look in his worn, pale face, which con¬ 
trasted terribly with the smile of deep re¬ 
pose on the sleeping face on which his eyes 
were fixed. 

And so he remained until she awoke, 
when his whole countenance changed for 
an instant to return her smile. 

Then he said softly, “God bless you, 
Eva !” and pressing her hand to his lips, he 
left the room. 

When I saw him again that day, I said— 

“ Fritz, you saved Eva’s life. She rallied 
from the time she saw you.” 

“ Yes,” he replied very gently, but with a 
strange impressiveness in his face; “ 1 think 
that may be true. I have saved her.” 

But he did not go into her room again; 
and the next day, to our surprise and dis¬ 
appointment, he said suddenly that he must 
leave us. 

He said few words of farewell to any of 
us, and would not see Eva to take leave of 
her. He said it might disturb her. 

But when he kissed me before he went, 
his hands and lips were as cold as death. 
Yet as I watched him go down the street, 
he did not once turn to wave a last good¬ 
bye, as he always used to do; but slowly 
and steadily he went on till he was out of 
sight. 

I turned back into the house with a very 
heavy heart; but when I went to tell Eva 
Fritz was gone, and tried to account for his 
not coming to take leave of her, because 1 
thought it would give her pain (and it does 
seem to me rather srtange of Fritz), she 
looked up with her quiet, trustful, con¬ 
tented smile and said— 

“lam not at all pained, Cousin Else. 1 
know Fritz had good reasons for it—some 
good, kind reasons—because he always has; 
and we shall see him again as soon as he 
can come.” 


VI. 

FRIEDRICH’S STORY. 

St. Sebastian, Erfurt, January 20,1510. 
The irrevocable step is taken. I have 
entered the Augustinian cloister. I write 
in Martin Luther’s cell. Truly I have for- 




44 


TEE SCHONBERG-COTTA FAMILY. 


saken father and mother, and all that was 
dearest to me, to take refuge at the foot of 
the cross. I have sacrificed everything on 
on earth to my vocation, and yet the con¬ 
flict is not over. I seem scarcely more cer¬ 
tain of my vocation now than while I re¬ 
mained in the world. Doubts buzz around 
me like wasps, and sting me on every side. 
The devil transforming himself into an 
angel of light perplexes me with the very 
words of Scripture. The words of Martin 
Luther’s father recur to me, as if spoken by 
a divine voice. “ Honor thy father and thy 
mother,” echoes back to me from the chants 
of the choir, and seems written everywhere 
on the white walls of my cell. 

And, besides the thunder of these words 
of God, tender voices seem to call me back 
by every plea of duty, not to abandon them 
to fight the battle of life alone. Else calls 
me from the old lumber-room, “Fritz! 
brother! who is to tell me now what to 
do?” My mother does not call me back, 
but I seem ever to see her tearful eyes, full 
of reproach and wonder which she tries to 
repress, lifted up to heaven for strength; 
and her worn, pale face growing more 
wan every day. In one voice and one face 
only I seem never to hear or see reproach or 
recall; and yet, heaven forgive me, those 
pure and saintly eyes which seem only to 
say, “Go on, cousin Fritz, God will help 
thee, and I will pray,”—those sweet, trust¬ 
ful, heavenly eyes draw me back to the 
world with more power than anything else. 

Is it then too late ? Have I lingered in 
the world so long that my heart can never 
more be torn from it? Is this the punish¬ 
ment of my guilty hesitation, that, though I 
have given my body to the cloister, God 
will not have my soul, which evermore must 
hover like a lost spirit about the scenes it 
was too reluctant to leave ? Shall 1 ever¬ 
more, when I lift my eyes to heaven, see all 
that is pure and saintly there embodied for 
me in a face which it is deadly sin for me to 
remember? 

Yet I have saved her life. If I brought 
the curse on my people by my sin, was not 
my obedience accepted ? From the hour 
when, in my room alone, after hearing that 
Eva was stricken, I prostrated myself before 
God, and not daring to take his insulted 
name on my lips, approached him through 
his martyred saint, and said, “ Holy Sebas¬ 
tian, by the arrows which pierced thy heart, 
ward off the arrows of pestilence from my 


home, and I will become a monk, and change 
my own guilty name for thine,”—from 
that moment did not Eva begin to recover, 
and from that time were not all my kindred 
unscathed ? “ Cadent a latere tuo mille, et 
decern millia a dextris tuis: ad te autem non 
appropinquabit.” Were not these words 
literally fulfilled; and while many still fell 
around us, was one afterwards stricken in 
my home? 

Holy Sebastian, infallible protector against 
pestilence, by thy firmness when accused, 
confirm my wavering will, by thy double 
death, save me from the second death; by 
the arrows which could not slay thee, thou 
hast saved us from the arrow that flietli 
by day; by the cruel blows which sent thy 
spirit from the circus to paradise, strengthen 
me against the blows of Satan; by thy body 
rescued from ignominious sepulture and laid 
in the catacombs among the martyrs, raise 
me from the filth of sin; by thy generous 
pleading for thy fellow-sufferers amidst 
thine own agonies, help me to plead for 
those who suffer with me; and by all thy 
sorrows, and merits, and joys, plead—Oh, 
plead for me, who henceforth bear thy 
name. 

St. Scholastica, February 10. 

I have been a month in the monastery. 
Yesterday my first probation was over, and 
I was invested with the white garments of 
the novitiate. 

The whole of the brotherhood were 
assembled in the church, when, as kneeling 
before the prior, lie asked me solemnly 
whether I thought my strength sufficient for 
the burden I proposed to take on myself. 

In a low grave voice he reminded me 
what those burdens are, the rough plain 
clothing, the abstemious living, the broken 
rest and long vigils, the toils in the service 
of the order, the reproach and poverty, the 
humiliations of the mendicant, and, above 
all, the renunciation of self-will and indi¬ 
vidual glory, to be a member of the order, 
bound to do whatever the superiors com¬ 
mand, and to go whithersoever they direct. 

“ With God for my help,” I could venture 
to say, “ of this Mull I make trial.” 

Then the prior replied,— 

“We receive thee, therefore, on proba¬ 
tion for one year; and may God, who has 
begun a good work in thee, carry it on unto 
perfection.” 

The whole brotherhood responded in a 




FRIEDRICH’S CHRONICLE . 45 


deep am 311 , and then all the voices joined 
in the hymn.— 

“Magna Pater 4ugustine, preces, nostras suscipe 
Et per eas conditori nos placare satage, 

Atque rege gregem tuum, summum decus prsesu- 
lum. 

Amatorem paupertatis, te collaudant pauperes; 
Assertorem veretatis amant veri judices; 

Frangis nobis favos meliis de Scripturis disserens. 

uae obscura prius erant nobis plana faciens, 
u de verbis Salvatoris dulcem panera conficis, 

Et propinas potum vitae de psalmorum nectare. 

Tu de vita clericorum sanctam scribis regulam, 
Quam qui amant et sequuntur viam tenent regiam, 
Atque tuo sancto ductu redeunt ad patriam. 

Regi regum salus, vita, decus et imperium; 
Trinitati laus et honor sit per omne saeculum, 

Qui concives nos ascribat supernorum civium.” * 

As the sacred words were chanted they 
mingled strangely in my mind with the 
ceremonies of the investiture. 

* “ Great Father Augustine, receive our prayers 
And through them effectually l’econcile the Creator; 
And rule thy flock, the highest glory of rulers. 

The poor praise thee, lover of poverty; 

True judges love thee, defender of truth; 
Breaking the honeycomb of the honey of Scripture 
thou distribiitest it to us. 

Making smooth to us what before was obscure, 
Thou, from the words of the Saviour, furnishest 
us with wholesome bread, 

And givest to drink draughts of life from the nectar 
of the psalms. 

Thou writest the holy rule for the life of priests, 
Which, whosoever love and follow, keep the royal 
road. 

And by Thy holy leading return to their fatherland. 

Salvation to the King of kings, life, glory, and 
dominion 

Honor and praise be to the Trinity throughout 
all ages, 

To him who declareth us to be fellow-citizens of the 
citizens of heaven.” 

My hair was shorn with the clerical tonsure, 
my secular dress was laid aside; the gar¬ 
ments of the novice were thrown on, girded 
with the girdle of rope, whilst the prior 
murmured softly to me, that with the new 
robes I must put on the new man. 

Then as the last notes of the hymn died 
away, I knelt and bowed low to receive the 
prior’s blessing, invoked in these words:— 
“ May God, who hath converted this 
young man from the world, and given him 
a mansion in heaven, grant that Jiis daily 
walk may be as becometh his calling; and 


that he may have cause to be thankful for 
what has this day been done,” 

Yersicles were then chanted responsively 
by the monks, who forming in procession 
moved towards the choir where we all pros¬ 
trated ourselves in silent prayer. 

After this they conducted me ro the great 
hall of the cloister, where all the brother¬ 
hood bestowed on me the kiss of peace. 

Once more I knelt before the prior, who 
reminded me that he who persevereth to the 
end shall be saved; and gave me over to 
the direction of the preceptor, whom the 
new Vicar-General Staupitz has ordered to 
be appointed to each novice. 

Thus the first great ceremony of my mo¬ 
nastic life is over, and it has left me with a 
feeling of blank and disappointment. It has 
made no change that I can feel in my heart. 
It has not removed the world further off 
from me. It has only raised another im¬ 
passable barrier between me and all that 
was dearest to me,—impassable as an ocean 
without ships, infrangible as the strongest 
iron, I am determined my will shall make 
it; but to my heart , alas! thin as gossamer, 
since every faintest, wistful tone of love, 
which echoes from the past, can penetrate 
it and pierce me with sorrow. 

My preceptor is very strict in enforcing 
the rules of the order. Trespasses against 
the rules are divided into four classes,— 
small, great, greater, and greatest, to each 
of which is assigned a different degree of 
penance Among the smaller are failing 
to go to church as soon as the sign 
is given, forgetting to touch the ground 
instantly with the hand and to smite the 
breast if in reading in the choir, or in sing¬ 
ing the least error is committed; looking 
about during the service; omitting prostra¬ 
tion at the Annunciation or at Christmas; 
neglecting the benediction in coming in or 
going out; failing to return books or gar¬ 
ments to their proper places; dropping food; 
spilling drink; forgetting to say grace be¬ 
fore eating. Among the great trespasses 
are: contending, breaking the prescribed 
silence at fasts, and looking at women, or 
speaking to them, except in brief replies. 

The minute rules are countless. It is 
difficult at first to learn the various genu¬ 
flexions, inclinations, and prostrations. The 
novices are never allowed to converse ex¬ 
cept in presence of the prior, are forbidden 
to take any notice of visitors, are enjoined 
to walk with downcast eyes, to read the 





46 


THE SCHONB ERG-COTTA FAMILY , 


Scriptures diligently, to bow low in receiv¬ 
ing every gift, and say, “The Lord be 
praised in his gifts.” 

How Brother Martin, with his free, bold, 
daring nature, bore these minute restric¬ 
tions, I know not. To me there is a kind 
of dull, deadening relief in them, they dis¬ 
tract my thoughts, or prevent my thinking. 

Yet it must be true, my obedience will aid 
my kindred more than all my toil could 
ever have done whilst disobediently remain¬ 
ing in the world. It is not a seltish seek¬ 
ing of my own salvation and ease which 
has brought me here, whatever some may 
think and say, as they did of Martin Luther, 
1 think of that ship in the picture at Magde¬ 
burg he so often told me of. Am I not in 
it,—actually in it now ? and shall I not here¬ 
after, when my strength is recovered from 
the fatigue of reaching it, hope to lean over 
and stretch out of my arms to them still 
struggling in the waves of this bitter world, 
and save them. 

Save them; yes, save their souls ! Did not 
my vow save precious lives ? And shall not 
my fastings, vigils, disciplines, prayers be 
as effectual for their souls? And then, 
hereafter, in heaven, where those dwell who, 
in virgin purity, have followed the Lamb, 
shall I not lean over the jasper-battlements 
and help them from purgatory up the steep 
sides of paradise, and be first at the gate to 
welcome them in 1 And then in paradise, 
where love will no longer be in danger of 
becoming sin, may we not be together for 
ever and for ever. And then shall I regret 
that I abandoned the brief polluted jo3 r s of 
earth for the pure joys of eternity ? Shall 
I lament then that 1 chose, according to my 
vocation, to suffer apart from them that 
their souls might be saved, rather than to 
toil with them for the perishing body ? 

Then I then! I, a saint in the City of 
God! I, a hesitating, sinful novice in the 
Augustinian monastery at Erfurt, who, after 
resisting for years, have at last yielded up 
my body to the cloister, but have no more 
power than ever to yield up my heart to 
God ! 

Yet lam in the sacred vessel; the rest 
will surely follow. Do all monks have such 
a conflict? No doubt the devil fights hard 
for every fresh victim he loses. It is, it 
must be, the devil who beckons me through 
those dear faces, who calls me through 
those familiar voices; for they would never 
call me back. They would hide their pain, 


and say, “ Go to God if he calls thee; leave 
us and go to God.” Else, my mother, all 
would say that, if their hearts broke in try¬ 
ing to say it. 

Had Martin Luther such thoughts in this 
very cell ? If they are from the Evil One, 
I think he had, for his assaults are strongest 
against the noblest; and yet I scarcely think 
he can have had such weak doubts as those 
which haunt me. He was not one of those 
who draw back to perdition; nor even of 
those who, having put their hand to the 
plough, look back, as I, alas 1 am so con¬ 
tinually doing. And what does the Scrip¬ 
ture say of such?—“they are not fit 
for the kingdom of God.” No exception, 
no reserve—monk, priest, saint; if a man 
look back, he is not fit for the kingdom of 
God. Then what becomes of my hopes of 
paradise, or acquiring merits which may aid 
others ? Turn back , draw back, I will never, 
although all the devils were to drive me, or 
all the world entice me; but look back, who 
can help that ? If a look can kill, what can 
save? Mortification, crucifixion, not for a 
day, but daily;—I must die daily; I must be 
dead— dead to the world. This cell must to 
me be as a tomb, where all that was most 
loving in my heart must die and be buried. 
Was it so to Martin Luther ? Is the cloister 
that to those bands of rosy, comfortable 
monks, who drink beer from great cans, and 
feast on the best of the land, and fast on the 
choicest fish? The tempter, the tempter 
again. Judge not, and ye shall not be 
judged. 

St. Eulalia, Erfurt, February 12 , 1510 . 

To-day one of the older monks came to 
me, seeing me, I suppose, look downcast 
and sad, and said, “ Fear not, Brother 
Sebastian, the strife is often hard at first* 
but remember the words of St. Jerome^: 
‘ Though thy father should lie before thy 
door weeping and lamenting, though thy 
mother should show thee the body that bore 
thee, and the breast that nursed thee, see 
that thou trample them under foot, and go 
on straightway to Christ.’ ” 

1 bowed my head, according to rule, in 
acknowledgment of his exhortation, and I 
suppose he thought his words comforted and 
strengthened me; but heaven knows the 
conflfct'they awakened in my heart when I 
sat alone to-night in my cell. “ Cruel, bit¬ 
ter, wicked words! ” my earthly heart 
would say; my sinful heart, that vigils’ 



FRIEDRICH'S CHRONICLE. 


47 


scourging, scarcely death itself, I fear, 
can kill. Surely, at least, the holy father 
Jerome spoke of heathen fathers and moth¬ 
ers. My mother would not show her anguish 
to win me back; she would say, “ My son, 
my first-born, God bless thee; I give thee 
freely up to God.” Does she not say so in 
this letter which I have in her handwriting,— 
which I have and dare not look at, because 
of the storm of memory it brings rushing on 
my heart ? 

Is there a word of reproach or remon¬ 
strance in her letter ? If there were, I would 
read it; it would strengthen me. The saints 
had that to bear. It is because those holy, 
tender words echo in my heart, from a voice 
weak with feeble health, that day by day, 
and hour by hour, my heart goes back to the 
home at Eisenach, and sees them toiling un¬ 
aided in the daily struggle for bread, to 
which I have abandoned them, unsheltered 
and alone. 

Then at times the thought comes, Am I, 
after all, a dreamer, as I have sometimes 
ventured to think my father,—neglecting my 
plain daily task for some Atlantis? and if 
my Atlantis is paradise instead of beyond 
the ocean, does that make so much differ¬ 
ence ? 

If Brother Martin were only here, he 
might understand and help me; but he has 
now been nearly two years at Wittenburg, 
where he is, they say, to lecture on theology 
at the Elector’s new University, and to be 
preacher. The monks seem nearly as proud 
of him as the University of Erfurt was. 

Yet, perhaps, after all, he might not un¬ 
derstand my perplexities. His nature was 
so firm and straightforward and strong. He 
would probably have little sympathy With 
wavering hearts and troubled consciences 
like mine. 

SS. Perpetua and Felicitas, March 7, 
Erfurt, Augustinian Cloister. 

To-day I have been out on my first quest 
for alms. It seemed very strange at first to 
be begging at familiar doors, with the frock 
and the convent sack on my shoulders; but 
although I tottered a little at times under 
the weight as it grew heavy (for the plague 
and fasting have left me weak), I returned 
to the cloister feeling better and easier in 
mind, and more hopeful as to my vocation, 
than I had done for some days. Perhaps, 
however, the fresh air had something to do 
with it; and, after all, it was only a .little 
bodily exultation. But certainly such bodily 


loads and outward mortifications are not the 
burdens which weigh the spirit down. There 
seemed a luxury in the half-scornful looks 
of some of my former fellow-students, and 
in the contemptuous tossing to me of scraps 
of meat by some grudging hands; just as a 
tight pressure, which in itself would be pain 
were we at ease, is relief to severe pain. 

Perhaps, also, 0 holy Perpetna and Felici¬ 
tas, whose day it is, and especially thou,G 
holy Perpetna, who, after encouraging thy 
sons to die for Christ, wast martyred thyself, 
hast pleaded for my forsaken mother and 
for me, and sendest me this day some ray of 
hope. 

St. Joseph, March , 19, 
Augustinian Cloister, Erfurt. 

St! Joseph, whom I have chosen to be one 
of the twenty-one patrons whom I especially 
honor, hear and aid me to-day. Thou 
whose glory it was to have no glory, but 
meekly to aid others to win their liigher 
crowns, give me also some humble place on 
high; and not to me alone, but to those 
whom I have left struggling in the stormy 
seas of this perilious world. 

Here, in the sacred calm of the cloister, 
surely at length the heart also must grow 
calm and cease to beat, except with the life 
of the universal Church,—the feasts in the 
Calendar becoming its events. But when 
will that be to me ? 

March 20. 

Has Brother Martin attained this repose 
yet? An aged monk sat with me in my 
cell yesterday, who told me strange tidings 
of him, which have given me some kind of 
bitter comfort. 

It seems that the monastic life did not at 
once bring repose into his heart. 

This aged monk was Brother Martin’s 
confessor, and he has also been given to me 
for mine. In his countenance there is such 
a peace as I long for,—not a still, death¬ 
like peace, as if he had fallen into it after 
the conflict, but a living, kindly peace, as 
if he had won it through the conflict, and 
enjoyed it even while the conflict lasted. 

It does not seem to me that Brother Mar¬ 
tin’s scruples and doubts were exactly like 
mine. Indeed, my confessor says that in all 
the years he has exercised his office he has 
never found two troubled hearts troubled 
exactly alike. 

I do not know that Brother Martin 
doubted his vocation, or looked back to the 
world; but he seems to have suffered 



48 


TEE SCMOETiERG-COTTA FAMILY. 


agonies of inward torture. His conscience 
was so quick and tender, that the least sin 
wounded him as if it had been the greatest 
crime. He invoked the saints most de¬ 
voutly—choosing, as I have done from his 
example, twenty-one saints, and invoking 
three every day, so as to honor each every 
week. He read mass every day, and had an 
especial devotion for the blessed Virgin. 
He wasted his body with fasting and watch¬ 
ing. He never intentionally violated the 
minutest rule of the order; and yet the 
more he strove, the more wretched he 
seemed to be. Like a musician whose ear 
is cultivated to the highest degree, the 
slightest discord was torture to him. Can it 
then be God’s intention that the growth of 
our spiritual life is only growing sensitive¬ 
ness to pain ? Is this true growth ?—or is it 
that monstrous development of one faculty 
at the expense of others, which is de¬ 
formity or disease ? 

The confessor said thoughtful^, when I 
suggested this— 

“ The world is out of tune, my son, and 
the heart is out of tune. 1'he more our 
souls vibrate truly to the music of heaven, 
the more, perhaps, they must feel the dis¬ 
cords of earth. At least it was so with 
Brother Martin; until at last, omiting a 
prostration or genuflexion, would weigh on 
his conscience like a crime. Once, after 
missing him for some time, we went to the 
door of his cell, and knocked. It was 
barred, and all our knocking drew no re¬ 
sponse. We broke open the door at last, 
and found him stretched senseless on the 
floor. We only succeeded in reviving him 
by strains of sacred music, chanted by the 
choisters whom we brought to his cell. He 
always dearly loved music, and believed it 
to have a strange potency against the wiles 
of the devil.” 

“ He must have suffered grievously,” I 
said. “ I suppose it is by such sufferings 
merit is acquired to aid others ?” 

“ He did suffer agonies of mind,” replied 
the old monk. “ Often he would walk up 
and down the cold corridors for nights to¬ 
gether.” 

“ Did nothing comfort him ?” I asked. 

“ Yes, my son; some words I once said to 
him comforted him greatly. Once, when I 
found him in an agony of despondency in 
his cell, I said, ‘ Brother Martin, dost thou 
believe in the forgiveness of sins, as saitli 
the Creed ? His face lighted up at once.” 


“The forgiveness of sins!” I repeated 
slowly. “Father, I also believe in that. 
But forgiveness only follows on contrition, 
confession and penance. How can I ever 
be sure that I have been sufficiently con¬ 
trite, that I have made an honest and com¬ 
plete confession, or that I have performed 
my penance aright?” 

“ Ah, my son,” said the old man, “these 
were exactly Brother Martin’s perplexities, 
and I could only point him to the crucified 
Lord, and remind him again of the forgive¬ 
ness of sins. All we do is incomplete, and 
when the blessed Lord says he forgive^ 
sins, I suppose he means the sins of sinneiWl 
who sin in their confession as in overythii® 
else. My son, he is more compassions j 
than you think, perhaps than any of 
think. At least this is my comfort; and 
when I stand before him at last, I fine j 
have made a mistake, and thought him me 
compassionate than he is, i trust he \v j 
pardon me. It can scarcely, I think, grie , 
him so much as declaring him to be a ha 
master would.” 

I did not say anything more to the e 
man. His words so evidently were streng; j 
and joy to him, that I could not venture i 
question them further. To me, also, tli | 
have given a gleam of hope. And yet, ■ 
the way is not rough and difficult, an el if i 
is not a hard thing to please Almighty G< , 
why all those severe rules and renunciatie \ 
—those heavy penances for triflingoffenc* f 

Merciful we know He is. The empe : 
may be merciful; but if a peasant were } 
attempt to enter the imperial presence wi l 
out the prescribed forms, would he not t 
driven from the palace with curses, at : I) 
point of the sword ? And what are th js 
rules at the court of heaven ? 

If perfect purity of heart and life, v > 
can lay claim to that ? 

If a minute attention to the rules of jT 1 
order such as this of St. Augustine, vSb 
can be sure of having never failed in this ? 
The inattention which caused the neglect 
would probably let it glide from the mem¬ 
ory. And then, what is the worth of con¬ 
fession ? 

Christ is the Saviour, but only of those 
who follow him. There is forgiveness of 
sins, but only for those who make adequate 
confession. I, alas ! have not followed him 
fully. What priest on earth can assure me 
1 have ever eonfesssed fully? 

Therefore I see him merciful, gracious, 



FRIEDRICH’S CHRONICLE. 49 


holy—a Saviour, but seated on a high 
throne, where I can never be sure petitions 
of mine will reach him; and alas ! one day 
to be seated on a great white throne, whence 
it is too sure his summoning voice will reach 
me. 

Mary, Mother of God, Virgin of virgins, 
mother of divine grace—holy Sebastian and 
all martyrs—great father Augustine and all 
holy doctors, intercede for me, that my 
penances may be accepted as a satisfaction 
for my sins, and may pacify my Judge. 

Annunciation of the Holy Virgin, 
March 25. 

My preceptor has put into my hands the 
Bible bound in red morocco which Brother 
Martin, lie says, used to read so much. I 
am to study it in all the intervals which the 
study of the fathers, expeditions for beg¬ 
ging, the services of the Church, and the 
menial offices in the house which fall to the 
share of novices, allow. These are not 
many. I have never had a Bible in rny 
hands before, and the hours pass quickly 
indeed in my cell which I can spend in 
reading it. The preceptor, when he comes 
to call me for the midnight service, often 
finds me still reading. 

It is very different from what I expected. 
There is nothing oratorical in it, there are 
no labored disquisitions, and no minute 
rules, at least in the New Testament. 

I wish sometimes I had lived in the Old 
Jewish times, when there was one temple 
wherein to worship, certain definite feasts 
to celebrate, certain definite ceremonial 
rules to keep. 

If I could have stood in the Temple 
courts on that great day of atonement, and 
seen the victim slain,and watched till the high 
priest came out from the holy place with his 
hands lifted up in benediction, I should have 
known absolutely that God was satisfied, 
and returned to my home in peace. Yes, 
to my home. There were no monasteries, 
apparently, in those Jewish times. Family 
life was God's appointment then, and family 
affections had his most solemn sanctions. 

In the New Testament, on the contrary, 

I cannot find any of those definite rules. 
It is all addressed to the heart; and who 
can make the heart right ? I suppose it is 
the conviction of this which has made the 
Church since then restore many minute 
rules and discipline, in imitation of the 
Jewish ceremonial; for in the Gospels and 


Epistles I can find no ritual, ceremonial, 
or definite external rules of any kind. 

What advantage, then, has the New 
Testament over the Old ? Christ has come. 
“ God so loved the world, that lie gave his 
only begotten Son.” This ought surely to 
make a great difference between us and the 
Jews. But how? 

St. Gregory of Nyssa, April 9. 

I have found, in my reading to-day, the 
end of Eva’s sentence—“ God so loved the 
world, that he gave his only begotten Son, 
that whosoever believeth in him should not 
perish , but have everlasting life.” 

How simple the words are!—“Believeth;” 
that would mean, in any other book, 
“trusteth,” “has reliance” in Christ;— 
simply to confide in him, and then receive 
his promise not to perish. 

Bi]t here —in this book, in theology—it is 
necessarily impossible that believing can 
mean anything so simple as that; because, 
at that rate, anyone who merely came to 
the Lord Jesus Christ in confiding trust 
would have everlasting life, without any 
further conditions; and this is obviously 
out of the question. 

For what can be more simple than to 
confide in one worthy of confidence? and 
what can be greater than ever lasting life ? 

And yet we know, from all the teaching 
of the doctors and fathers of the Church, 
that nothing is more difficult than obtaining 
everlasting life; and that, tor this reason, 
monastic orders, pilgrimages, penances, 
have been multiplied from century to 
century; for this reason saints have for¬ 
saken every earthly joy, and inflicted on 
themselves every possible torment;—all to 
obtain everlasting life, which, if this word 
“ believeth” meant here what it would mean 
anywhere but in theology, would be offered 
freely to every petitioner. 

Wherefore it is clear that “believeth,” 
in the Scriptures, means something entirely 
different from what it does in any secular 
book, and must include contrition, con¬ 
fession, penance, satisfaction, mortification 
of the flesh, and all else necessary to 
salvation. 

Shall I venture to send this end of Eva’s 
sentence to her ? 

It might mislead her. Dare I for her 
sake ?—dare I still more for my own ? 

One hour I have sat before this question; 
and whither has my heart wandered ? 
What confession can retrace the flood of 







50 


THE SCHONBERG-COTTA FAMILY. 


bitter thoughts which have rushed over me 
in this one hour ? 

1 had watched her grow from childhood 
into early womanhood; and until these last 
months, until that week of anguish, 1 had 
thought of her as a creature between a 
child and an angel. I had loved her as a 
sister who had yet a mystery and a charm 
about her different from a sister. Only 
when it seemed that death might separate 
us did it burst upon me that there was 
something in my affection for her which 
made not one among others, but in some 
strange, sacred sense the only one on earth 
to me. 

And as I recovered came the hopes I 
must never more recall, which made all 
life like the woods in spring, and my heart 
like a full river set free from its ice fetters, 
and rushing through the world in a tide of 
blessing. 

I thought of a home which might be, I 
thought of a sacrament which should 
transubstantiate all life into a symbol of 
heaven, a home which was to be peaceful 
and sacred as a church, because of the 
meek, and pure, and heavenly creature who 
should minister there. 

And then came to me that terrible vision 
of a city smitten by the pestilence, whence 
I had brought the recollection of the 
impulse I had had in the forest at midnight, 
and more than once since then, to take the 
monastic vows. I felt I was like Jonah 
flying from God; yet still I hesitated until 
she was stricken. And then I yielded. I 
vowed if she were saved I would become a 
monk. 

Not till she was stricken, whose loss 
would have made the whole world a blank 
to me,—not till the sacrifice was worthless, 
—did I make it. And will God accept such 
a sacrifice as this ? 

At least brother Martin had not this to 
reproach himself with. He did not delay 
his conversion until his whole being had 
become possessed by an image no prayers 
can erase; nay, which prayer and holy 
meditations, or heaven itself, only rivet on 
the heart, as the purest reflection of heaven 
memory can recall. 

Brother Martin, at least, did not trifle 
with his vocation until too late. 


VII. 

ELSE’S STORY. 

January 23. 

It is too plain now why Fritz would not 
look back as he went down the street. He 
thought it would be looking back from the 
kingdom of God. 

The kingdom of God, then, is the cloister, 
and the world, we are that—father, mother, 
brothers, sisters, friends, home, that is the 
world. I shall never understand it. For 
if all my younger brothers say is true, 
either all the priests and monks are not in 
the kingdom of God or the kingdom of God 
is strangely governed here on earth. 

Fritz was helping us all so much. He 
would have been the stay of our parents’ 
old age. He was the example and admira¬ 
tion of the boys, and the pride and delight 
of us all; and to mel My heart grows so 
bitter when I write about it, I seem to hate 
and reproach everyone. Everyone but 
Fritz; I cannot, of course, hate him. But 
why was all that was gentlest and noblest 
in him made to work towards the last dread¬ 
ful step ? 

If our father had only been more suc- 
cessful Fritz need not have entered on that 
monastic foundation at Erfurt, which made 
his conscience so sensitive; if my mother 
had only not been so religious, and taught 
us to reverence Aunt Agnes as so much 
better than herself, he might never have 
thought of the monastic life; if I had been 
more religious he might have confided more 
in me,and I might have induced him to pause 
at least a few years, before taking this un¬ 
alterable step. If Eva had not been so 
wilful, and insisted on braving the conta¬ 
gion from me, she might never have been 
stricken, and that vow might not yet, might 
never have been taken. If God had not 
caused him so innocently to bring the pesti¬ 
lence among us! But I must not dare to 
say another word of complaint, or it will 
become blasphemy, Doubtless it is God 
who has willed to bring all this misery on 
us, and to rebel against God is a deadly sin. 
As Aunt Agnes said, “The Lord is a‘jeal¬ 
ous God,” he will not suffer us to make 
idols. We must love him best, first, alone. 
We must make a great void in our heart, by 
renouncing all earthly affections, that he 
may fill it. We must mortify the flesh, 
that we may live. What then is the flesh ? 




61 


MLStf'S STORY. 


1 suppose all our natural affections, which 
the monks call our fleshly lusts. These 
Fritz has renounced. Then if all our natu¬ 
ral affections are to die in us, what is to live 
in us? The “spiritual life,” they say in 
some of the sermons, and the love of God. 
But are not my natural affections my heart; 
and if I am not to love God with my heart, 
with the heart with which I love my father 
and mother, what am I to love him with ? 

It seems to me, the love of God to us is 
something quite different from any human 
beiug’s love to us. 

When human beings love us they like to 
have us with them; they delight to make 
us happy; they delight in our being happy, 
whether they make us so or not, if it is a 
right happiness, a happiness that does us 
good. 

But with God’s love it must be quite dif¬ 
ferent. He warns us not on any account to 
come too near him. We have to place 
priests, and saints, and penances between 
us and him, and then approach him with the 
greatest caution, lest, after all, it should be 
in the wrong way, and he should be angry. 
And instead of delighting in our happiness, 
he is never so much pleased as when we re¬ 
nounce all the happiness of our life, and 
make other people wretched in doing so, 
as Fritz, our own Fritz, has just done. 

Therefore, also, no doubt, the love God 
requires we should feel for him is some¬ 
thing entirely different from the love we 
give each other. It must, I suppose, be a 
serious, severe, calm adoration, too sublime 
to give either joy or sorrow, such as has left 
its stamp on Aunt Agnes’ grave, impassive 
face. I can never, never even attempt to 
attain to it. Certainly at present I have no 
time to think of it. 

Thank heaven, thou lovest still, mother 
of mercy; in £%face there have been tears, 
real, bitter, human tears; in thine eyes 
there have been smiles of joy, real, simple, 
human joy^. Thou wilt understand and 
have pity. Yet, oh, couldst not thou, even 
thou, sweet mother, have reminded him of 
the mother he has left to battle on alone ? 
thou who art a mother, and didst bend over 
a cradle, and hadst a little lowly home at 
Nazareth once ? 

But I know my own mother would not 
even herself have uttered a word to keep 
Fritz back. When first we heard of it, and 
I entreated her to write and remonstrate, 
although the tears were streaming from her 


eyes, she said, “Not a word, Else, not a 
syllable. Shall not I give him up freely to 
him who gave him to me. God might have 
called him away from earth altogether 
when he lay smitten with the plague, and 
shall I grudge him to the cloister ? I shall 
see him again,” she added, “once or twice 
at least. When he is consecrated priest, 
shall I not have joy then, and see him in 
his white robes at the altar, and, perhaps, 
even receive my Creator from his hands.” 

“ Once or twice!—0 mother!” I sobbed, 
and in church, amongst hundreds of others. 
“What pleasure will there be in that?” 

“ Else,” she said softly, but with a firm¬ 
ness unusual with her, “ my child, do not 
say another word. Once I myself had some 
faint inclination to the cloister, which, if I 
had nourished it, might have grown into a 
vocation. But I saw your father, and I 
neglected it. And see what troubles my 
children have had to bear! Has there not 
also been a kind of fatal spell on all your 
father’s inventions? Perhaps God will at 
last accept from me in my son what I with¬ 
held in myself, and will be pacified towards 
us, and send us better days; and then your 
father’s great invention will be completed 
yet. But do not say anything of what I 
told you to him.” 

I have never seen our father so troubled 
about anything. 

“ Just as he was able to understand my 
projects! ” he said, “ and I would liave be¬ 
queathed them all to him! ” 

For some.days he never touched a model; 
but now he has crept back to his old folios 
and his instruments, and tells us there was 
something in Fritz’s horoscope which might 
have prepared us for this, had he only un¬ 
derstood it a little before. However, this 
discovery, although too late to warn us of 
the blow, consoles our father, and he has 
resumed his usual occupations. 

Eva looks very pale and fragile, partly, no 
doubt, from the effects of the pestilence; 
but when first the rumor reached us, I 
sought some sympathy from her, and said, 
“ 0 Eva, how strange it seems, when Fritz 
always thought of us before himself, to 
abandon us all thus without one word of 
warning.” 

“ Cousin Else,” she said, “ Fritz has done 
now as he always does. He has thought of 
us first, I am as sure of it as if I could hear 
him say so. He thought he would serve us 




53 THE SGHONBERG-COTTA FAMILY. 


best by leaving us thus, or he would never 
have left us.” 

She understood him best of all, as she 
so often does. When his letter came to 
our mother, it gave just the reasons she had 
often told me she was sure had moved him. 

It is difficult to tell what Eva feels, be¬ 
cause of that strange inward peace in her 
which seems always to flow under all her 
other feelings. 

I have not seen her shed any tears at all; 
and whilst I can scarcely bear to enter our 
dear old lumber-room, or to do anything I 
did with him, her great delight seems to be 
to read every book he liked, and to learn 
and repeat every hymn she learned with 
him. 

Eva and the mother cling very closely 
together. She will scarcely let my mother 
do any household work, but ihsists on shar¬ 
ing every laborious task which hitherto we 
have kept her from, because of her slight 
and delicate frame. 

It is true I rise early to save them all the 
work I can, because they have neither of 
them half the strength I have, and I enjoy 
stirring about. Thoughts come so much 
more bitterly on me when I am sitting still. 

But when I am kneading the dough, or 
pounding the clothes with stones in the 
stream on washing days, I feel as if I were 
pounding at all my perplexities, and that 
makes my hands stronger and my perplexi¬ 
ties more shadowy, until even now I find 
myself often singing as I am wringing the 
clothes by the stream. It is so pleasant in 
the winter sunshine, with the brook babbling 
among the rushes and cresses, and little 
Thekla prattling by my side, and pretending 
to help. 

But when I have finished my day’s work, 
and come into the house, I find the mother 
and Eva sitting close side by side; and per¬ 
haps Eva is silent, and my mother brushes 
tears away as they fall on her knitting; but 
when they look up, their faces are calm and 
peaceful, and then I know they have been 
talking about Fritz. 

Eisenach, February 2. 

Yesterday afternoon I foipid Eva trans¬ 
lating a Latin hymn he loved to our mother, 
and then she sang it through in her sweet 
clear voice. It was about the dear, dear 
country in heaven, and Jerusalem the 
Golden. 

In the evening I said to her— 

“ 0 Eva, how can you bear to sing the 


hymns Fritz loved so dearly, and I could 
not sing a line steadily of any song he had 
cared to hear me sing ? And he delighted 
always so much to listen to you. His voice 
would echo ‘never, never more’ to every 
note I sung, and thy songs would all end in 
sobs.” 

“ But I do not feel separated from Fritz, 
Cousin Else,” she said, “ and I never shall. 
Instead of hearing that melancholy chant 
you think of, ‘ never, never more,’ echo 
from all the hymns he loved, I always seem 
to hear his voice responding, ‘ For ever and 
for evermore.’ And I think of the time 
when we shall sing them together again.” 

“ Do you mean in heaven, Eva,” I said, 
“that is so very far off, and if we ever 
reach it—” 

“Not so very far off, Cousin Else,” she 
said. “ I often think it is very near. If it 
were not so, how could the angels be so 
much with us and yet with God ? ” 

“ But life seems so long, now Fritz is 
gone.” 

“Not so very long, Cousin Else,” she 
said. “ I often think it may be very short, 
and often I pray it may.” 

“Eva,” I exclaimed, “you surely don’t 
pray that you may die ? ” 

“ Why not,” she said, very quietly. “ I 
think if God took us to himself, we might 
help those we love better there than at 
Eisenach, or perhaps even in the convent. 
And it is there we shall meet again, and 
there are never any partings. My father 
told me so,” she added, “ before he died.” 

Then I understood how Eva mourns for 
Fritz, and why she does not weep; but I 
could only say— 

“0 Eva, don’t pray to die. There are 
all the saints in heaven: and you help us so 
much more here.” 

February 8. 

I cannot feel at all reconciled to losing 
Fritz, nor do I think I ever shall. Like all 
the other troubles, it was no doubt meant to 
do me good; but it does me none, I am 
sure, although, of course, that is my fault. 
What did me good was being happy, as I 
was when Fritz came back; and that is 
passed for ever. 

My great comfort is our grandmother. 
The mother and Eva look on everything 
from such sublime heights; but ray grand¬ 
mother feels more as I do. Often, indeed, 
she speaks very severely of Fritz, which 
always does me good, because, of course, I 





ELSJS’S STORY. 


53 


defend him, and then she becomes angry, 
and says we are an incomprehensible fam¬ 
ily, and have the strangest ideas of right 
and wrong, from my father downward, 
she ever heard of; and then I grow 
angry, and say my father is the best and 
wisest man in the Electoral States. Then 
our grandmother begins to lament over her 
poor, dear daughter, and the life she has 
led, and rejoices, in a plaintive voice, that 
she herself has nearly done with the world 
altogether; and then I try to comfort her, 
and say that I am sure there is not much in 
the world to make any one wish to stay in 
it; and having reached this point of despond¬ 
ency, we both cry and embrace each 
other, and she says I am a poor, good child, 
and Fritz was always the delight of her 
heart, which I know very well;—and thus 
we comfort each other. We have, more¬ 
over, solemnly resolved, our grandmother 
and I, that, whatever comes of it, we will 
never call Fritz anything but Fritz.” 

“Brother Sebastian, indeed!” she said; 
“ your mother might as well take a new 
husband as your brother a new name! 
Was not she married, and was not he christ¬ 
ened in church ? Is not Friedrich a good, 
honest name, which hundreds of your an¬ 
cestors have borne ? And shall we call him 
instead a heathen foreign name, that none 
of your kindred were ever known by ? ” 

“ Not heathen, grandmother,” I venture 
to suggest. “You remember telling us of 
the martyrdom of St. Sebastian by the 
heathen emperor ?” 

“ Do you contradict me, child ?” she ex¬ 
claimed. “ Did I not know the whole mar- 
tyrology before your mother was born? I 
say it is a heathen name. No blame to the 
saint if his parents were poor benighted 
Pagans, and knew no better name to give 
him: but that our Fritz should adopt it in¬ 
stead of his own is a disgrace. My lips at 
least are too old to learn such new-fash¬ 
ioned nonsense. I shall call him the name 
I called him at the font and in his cradle, 
and no other.” 

Yes, Fritz; Fritz he is to us, and shall be 
always. Fritz in our hearts till death. 

February 15. 

We have just heard that Fritz has fin¬ 
ished his first month of probation, and has 
been invested with the frock of the novice. 
I hate to think of his thick, dark, waving 
hair flipped in the circle of the tonsure. 


But the worst part of it is the effect of his 
becoming a monk has had on the other 
boys, Christopher and Pollux. 

They, who before this thought Fritz the 
model of everything good and great, seem 
repelled from all religion now. I have 
difficulty even in getting them to church. 

Christopher said to me the other day,— 

“Else, why is a man who suddenly de¬ 
serts his family to become a soldier called a 
villain, while the man who deserts those 
who depend on him to become a monk is 
called a saint ? ” 

It is very unfortunate the boys should 
come to me with their religious perplex¬ 
ities, because I am so perplexed myself, 
I have no idea how to answer them. I gen¬ 
erally advise them to ask Eva. 

This time I could only say, as our grand¬ 
mother had so often said to me,— 

“ You must wait till you are older, and 
then you will understand.” But I added, 
“Of course it is quite different: one leaves 
his home for God, and the other for the 
world.” 

But Christopher is the worst, and he con¬ 
tinued,— 

“ Sister Else, I don’t like the monks at all. 
You and Eva and our mother have no idea 
how wicked many of them are. Reinhardt 
says he has seen them drunk often, and 
heard them swear, and that some of them 
make a jest even of the mass, and the 
priests’ houses are not fit for any honest 
maiden to visit, and,—” 

“Reinhardt is a bad boy,” I said, color¬ 
ing; “and I have often told you I don’t 
want to hear anything he says.” 

“ But I, at all events, shall never become 
a monk or a priest,” retorted Christopher; 
“ I think the merchants are better. Women 
cannot understand about these things,” he 
added, loftily, “ and it is better they should 
not; but I know; and I intend to be a mer¬ 
chant or a soldier.” 

Christopher and Pollux are fifteen, and 
Fritz is two-and-twenty; but lie never talked 
in that lofty way to me about women not 
understanding! 

It did make me indignant to hear Christo¬ 
pher, wlw) is always tearing his clothes, 
and getting into scrapes, and perplexing 
us to get him out of them, comparing him¬ 
self with Fritz, and looking down on his 
sisters; and I said, “It is only boys wlo 
talk scornfully of women. Men, true men, 
honor women.” 





54 


THE SCHONBERG-COTTA FAMILY , 


“The monks do not,” retorted Christo¬ 
pher. “ I have heard them say things my¬ 
self worse than I have ever said about any 
woman. Only last Sunday, did not Father 
Boniface say half the mischief in the world 
had been done nearly all by women, from 
Eve to Helen and Cleopatra ?” 

“Do not mention our mother Eve with 
those heathens, Christopher,” said our 
grandmother, coming to my rescue, from 
her corner by the stove. “Eve is in the 
Holy Scriptures, and many of these pagans 
are not fit for people to speak of. Halt the 
saints are women, you know very well. 
Peasants and traders,” she added sublimely, 
“may talk slightingly of women; but no 
man can be a true knight who does.” 

“The monks do,” muttered Christopher, 
doggedly. 

“ I have nothing to say about the monks,” 
rejoined our grandmother tartly. And 
accepting this imprudent concession of our 
grandmother’s, Christopher retired from 
the contest. 

March 25. 

I have just been looking at two letters 
addressed to Father Johann Braun, one of 
our Eisenach priests, by Martin Luther. 
They were addressed to him as the holy and 
venerable priest of Christ and of Mary. 
So much I could understand, and also that 
he calls himself Brother Martin Luther, not 
Brother Augustine, a name he assumed on 
first entering the cloister. Therefore cer¬ 
tainly I may call our Fritz, Brother Friedrich 
Cotta. 

March 29, 1510. 

A young mail was at Aunt Ursula Cotta’s, 
this evening, who told us strange things 
about the doings at Annaberg. 

Dr. Tetzel has been there two years, sell¬ 
ing the papal indulgences to the people; 
and lately, out of regard, he says, to the 
great piety of the German people, he has 
reduced their price. 

There was a great deal of diicussion about 
it, which I rather regretted the boys were 
present to hear. My father said indulgences 
did not mean forgiveness of sins, but only 
remission of certain penances which the 
Church had imposed. But the young man 
from Annaberg told us that Dr. John Tetzel 
solemnly assured the people, that since it 
was impossible for them, on account of 
their sins, to make satisfaction to God by 
their works, our Holy Father the Pope, who 
has the control of all the treasury of merits 


accumulated by the Church throughout the 
ages, now graciously sells those merits to 
any who will buy, and thereby bestows on 
them forgiveness of sins (even of sins which 
no other priest can absolve), and a certain 
entrance into eternal life. 

The young man said, also, that the great 
red cross has been erected in the nave of 
the principal church, with the crown of 
thorns, the nails, the spear suspended from 
it, and that at times it has been granted to the 
people even to see the blood of the Crucified 
flow from the cross. Beneath this cross are 
the banners of the Church, and the papal 
standard, with the triple crown. Before it 
is the large, strong iron money chest. On 
one side stands the pulpit, where Dr. Tetzel 
preaches daily, and exhorts the people to 
purchase this inestimable favor while yet, 
there is time, for themselves and then’ 
relations in purgatory,—and translates the 
long parchment mandate of the Lord Pope, 
with the papal seals hanging from it. On 
the other side is a table, where sit several 
priests, with pen, ink, and writing-desks, 
selling the indulgence tickets, and counting 
the money into boxes. Lately he told us, not 
only have the prices been reduced, but at 
the end of the letter affixed to the churches, 
it is added, Pauperibus dcntur grab's.” 

“Freely to the poor!” That certainly 
would suit us ! And if I had only time to 
make a pilgrimage to Annaberg, if this is 
the kind of religion that pleases ’ God, it 
certainly might be attainable even for me. 

If Fritz had only known it before, he 
need not have made that miserable vow. A 
journey to Annaberg would have more than 
answered the purpose. 

Only, if the Pope has such inestimable 
treasures at his disposal, why could he not 
always give them freely to the poor, always 
and everywhere ? 

But I know it is a sin to question what 
the Lord Pope does. I might almost as 
well question what the Lord God Almighty 
does. For he also, who gave those treasures 
to the Pope, is he not everywhere, and 
could he not give them freely to us direct ? 
It is plain these are questions too high for 
me. 

I am not the only one perplexed by those 
indulgences, however. My mother says it 
is not the way she was taught, and she had 
rather keep to the old paths. Eva said, “If 
I were the Lord Pope, and had such a treas¬ 
ure, I think 1 could not help instantly 










ELSE'a STORY. 


55 


leaving my palace and my beautful 
Rome, and going over the mountains 
and over the seas, into every city and every 
village; every hut in the forests, and every 
room in the lowest streets, that none might 
miss the blessing, although I had to walk 
barefoot, and never saw holy Rome again.” 

“ But then,” said our father, “ the great 
church at St. Peter’s would never be built. 
It is on that, you know, the indulgence 
money is to be spent.” 

“ But Jerusalem the Golden would be 
built, Uncle Cotta,” said Eva; “ and would 
not that be better ?” 

“ We had better not talk about it, Eva,” 
said the mother. “ The holy Jerusalem is 
being built; and I suppose there are many 
different ways to the same end. Only I like 
the way I know best.” 

The boys, I regret to say, had made many 
irreverent gestures during this conversation 
about the indulgences, and afterwards I had 
to speak to them. 

“Sister Else,” said Christopher, “it is 
quite useless talking to me. I hate the 
monks, and all belonging to them. And I 
don’t believe a word they say—at least, not 
because they say it. The boys at school say 
this Dr. Tetzel is a very bad man, and a 
great liar. Last week Reinhardt told us 
something he did, which will show you 
what he is. One day he promised to show 
the people a feather which the devil plucked 
out of the wing of the archangel Michael. 
Reinhardt says he supposes the devil gave 
it Dr. Tetzel. However that may be, during 
the night some students in jest found their 
way to his relic-box, stole the feather, and 
replaced it by some coals. The next day, 
when Dr. Tetzel had been preaching fer¬ 
vently for a long time on the wonders of 
this feather, when he opened the box there 
was nothing in it but charcoal. But he was 
not to be disconcerted. He merely said, ‘ 1 
v ive taken the wrong box of relics, 1 per- 
c.ive; these are some most sacred cinders 
—the relics of the holy body of St. Laurence, 
who was roasted on a gridiron.’ ” 

“ Schoolboj^’s stories,” said I. 

“They are as good as monks’ stories, at 
all events,” rejoined Christopher. 

I resolved to see if Pollux was as deeply 
possessed with this irreverent spirit as Chris¬ 
topher, and therefore this morning, when I 
found him alone, I said, “Pollux, you used 
to love Fritz so dearly, you would not surely 


take up thoughts which would pain him so 
deeply if he knew of it.” 

“ I do love Fritz,” Pollux replied, “ but I 
can never think he was right in leaving us 
all; and I like the religion of the Creeds 
and the Ten Commandments better than 
that of the monks. 

Daily, hourly I feel the loss of Fritz. It 
is not half as much the money he earned; 
although, of course, that helped us—we can 
and do struggle on without that. It is the 
influence he had over the boys. They felt 
he was before them in the same race; and 
when he remonstrated with them about 
anything, they listened. But if I blame 
them, they think it is only a woman’s igno¬ 
rance, or a woman’s superstition,—and boys 
cannot be like women. And now it is the 
same with Fritz. He is removed into an¬ 
other sphere, which is not theirs; and if I 
remind them of what he did or said, they 
say, “ Yes, Fritz thought so; but you know 
he has become a monk; but we do not 
intend ever to be monks, and the religion 
of monks and laymen are different things.” 

April 2. 

The spring is come again. I wonder if it 
sends the thrill of joy into Fritz’s cell at Er¬ 
furt that it does into all the forests around 
us here, and into my heart I 

I suppose there are trees near him, and 
birds—little, happy birds — making their 
nests among them, as they do in our yard, 
and singing as they work. 

But the birds are not monks. Their nests 
are little homes, and they wander freely 
whither they will, only brought back by 
love. Perhaps Fritz does not like to listen 
to the birds now, because they remind him 
of home and our long spring days in the 
forest. Perhaps, too, they are part of the 
world he has renounced, and lie mnst be 
dead to the world. 

April 3. 

We have had a long day in the forest, 
gathering sticks and dry twigs. Every 
creature seemed so happy there! It was 
such a holiday to watch the ants roofing 
their nests with fir twigs, and the birds 
flying hither and thither with food for their 
nestlings; and to hear the wood-pigeons, 
which Fritz always said were like Eva, 
cooing softly in the depths of the forest. 

At mid-day we sat down in a clearing cf 
the forest, to enjoy the meal we had brought 
with us. A little, quiet brook prattled near 





50 


TEE SC HONE ERG-COTTA FAMILY, 


us, of which we drank, and the delicate 
young twigs on the topmost boughs of the 
dark, majestic pines trembled softly, as if 
for joy, in the breeze. 

As we rested, we told each other stories, 
—Pollux, wild tales of demon hunts, which 
fl§w, with the baying of demon dogs, 
through these very forests at midnight. 
Then, as the children began to look fear¬ 
fully around, and shiver, even at mid-day, 
while they listened, Christopher delighted 
them with quaint stories of wolves in 
sheeps’ clothing politely offering them¬ 
selves to the farmer as shepherds, which, I 
suspect, were from Reniecke Fuchs, or 
some such dangerous book, but, without the 
application, were very amusing. 

Criemhild and Atlantis had their stories of 
Kobolds, who played strange tricks in the 
cow-stalls; and of Riibezalil and the mis¬ 
shapen dwarf gnomes, who guarded the 
treasures of gold and silver in the glittering 
caves under the mountains; and of the elves, 
who danced beside the brooks at twilight, 

“ And I,” said loving little Tliekla, “ al¬ 
ways want to see poor Nix, the water-sprite, 
who cries by the streams at moonlight, and 
lets his tears mix with the waters, because 
he has no soul, and he wants to live for 
ever. I should like to give him half mine.” 

We should all of us have been afraid 
to speak of these creatures, in their own 
haunts among the pines, if the sun had not 
been high in the heavens. Even as it was, 
I began to feel a little uneasy, and I wished 
to turn the conversation from these elves and 
sprites, who, may think, are the spirits of 
the old heathen gods, who linger about 
their haunts. One reason why people think 
so is, that they dare not venture within the 
sound of the church bells; which makes 
some, again, think they are worse than 
poor, shadowy, dethroned heathen gods, 
and had, indeed, better be never mentioned 
at all. I thought I could not do better than 
tell the legend" of my beloved giant Olferus, 
who became Christopher and a saint by 
carrying the holy child across the river. 

Thekla wondered if her favorite Nix could 
be saved in the same way. She longed to 
see him and tell him about it. 

But Eva had still her story to tell, and she 
related to us her legend of St. Catherine. 

“St. Catherine,” she said, f4 was a lady 
of royal birth, the only child of the king 
and queen of Egypt. ” Her parents were 
heathens, but they died and left her an 


orphan when she was only fourteen. She 
was more beautiful than any of the ladies 
of her court, and richer than any princess 
in the world; but she did not care for pomp, 
or dress, or all her precious things. God’s 
golden stars seemed to her more magnificent 
than all the splendor of her kingdom, and 
she shut herself up in her palace, and 
studied philosophy and the stars until she 
grew wiser than all the wise men of the.East. 

“ But one day the Diet of Egypt met, and 
resolved that their young queen must be 
persuaded to marry. They sent a deputa¬ 
tion to her in her palace, who asked her, if 
they could find a prince beautiful beyond 
any, surpassing all philosophers in wisdom, 
of noblest mind and richest inheritance, 
would she marry him? The queen replied, 

4 He must be so noble that all men shall 
worship him, so great that 1 shall never 
think I have made him king, so rich that 
none shall ever say I enriched him, so 
beautiful that the angels of God shall desire 
to behold him. If ye can find such a prince, 
he shall be my husband and the lord of my 
heart,’ Now, near the queen’s palace there 
lived a poor old hermit in a cave, and that 
very night the holy Mother of God appeared 
to him, and told him the king who should be 
lord of the queen’s heart w r as none other 
than than her Son. Then the hermit went 
to the palace and presented the queen with 
a picture of the Virgin and Child; and when 
St. Catherine saw it her heart was so filled 
with its holy beauty that she forgot her 
books, her spheres, and the stars; Plato and 
Socrates became tedious to her as a twfiee- 
told tale, and she kept the sacred picture 
always before her. Then one night she had 
a dream:—She met on the top of a high 
mountain a glorious company of angels, 
clothed in white, with chaplets of white 
lilies. She fell on her face before them, 
but they said, 4 Stand up, dear sister Cather¬ 
ine, and be right welcome.’ Then they led 
her by the hand to another company of 
angels more glorious still, clothed in purple 
with chaplets of red roses. Before these, 
again, she fell on her face, dazzled with 
their glory; but they said, * Stand up, dear 
sister Catherine; thee hath the King de¬ 
lighted to honor.’ Then they led her by the 
hand to an inner chamber of the palace of 
heaven, where sat a queen in state; and the 
angels said to her, 4 Our most gracious sov¬ 
ereign Lady, Empress of heaven, and 
Mother of the King of Blessedness, be 



ELBE'S STORY. 


57 


pleased that we present unto you this our 
sister, whose name is in the Book of Life, 
beseeching you to accept her as your daugh¬ 
ter and handmaid.’ Then our blessed Lady 
rose and smiled graciously, and led St. 
Catherine to her blessed Son; but he turned 
from her, and said sadly, ‘ She is not fair 
enough for Me.’ Then St. Catherine awoke, 
and in her heart all day echoed the words, 
‘She is not fair enough for Me ;’ and she 
rested not until she became a Christian and 
was baptized. And then, after some years, 
the tyrant Maximin put her to cruel tortures, 
and beheaded her, because she was a Chris¬ 
tian. 

“ But the angels took her body, and laid 
it in a white marble tomb on the top of 
Mount Sinai, and the Lord Jesus Christ re¬ 
ceived her soul, and welcomed her to heaven 
as his pure and spotless bride—for at last he 
had made her fair enough for him ; and so she 
has lived ever since in heaven, and is the 
sister of the angels.” 

With Eva’s legend we began our work 
again; and in the evening, as we returned 
with our faggots, it was pleasant to see the 
goats creeping on before the long shadows 
which evening began to throw from the 
forests across the green valleys. 

The hymns which Eva sang seemed quite 
in tune with everything else. I did not 
want to understand the words; everything 
seemed singing in words I could not help 
feeling,— 

“God is good to us all. He gives twigs 
to the ants, and grain to the birds, and 
makes the trees their palaces, and teaches 
them to sing; and will he not care for you ?” 

Then the boys were so good. They never 
give me a moment’s anxiety, not even 
Christopher, but collected faggots twice as 
large as ours in half the time, and then fin¬ 
ished ours, and then performed all kinds of 
feats in climbing trees and leaping brooks, 
and brought home countless treasures for 
Thekla. 

These are the days that always make me 
feel so much better, even a little religious, 
and as if I could almost love God. It is 
only when I come back again into the 
streets, under the shadow of the nine monas¬ 
teries, and see the monks and priests in dark 
robes flitting silently about with downcast 
eyes, that I remember we are not like the 
birds or even the ants, for they have never 
sinned, and that, therefore, God cannot care 
for us and love us as lie seems to do the 


least of his other creatures, until we have 
become holy and worked our way through 
that great wall of sin, which keeps us from 
him and shadows all our life. 

Eva does not feel this. As we returned 
she laid her basket down on the threshold of 
St. George’s Church, and crossing herself 
with holy water, went softly up to the high 
altar, and there she knelt while the lamp 
burned before the Holy Sacrament. And 
when I looked at her face as she rose, it was 
beaming with joy. 

“ You are happy, Eva, in the church and 
in the forest,” I said to her as we went 
home, “you seem at home everywhere.” 

<: Is not God everywhere?” she said; 
“ and has he not loved the world ?” 

“ But our sins!" I said. 

“Have we not the Saviour?” she said, 
bowing her head. 

“But think how hard people find it to 
please him,” I said; “think of the pilgrim¬ 
ages, the penances, the indulgences?” 

“ I do not quite understand all that,” she 
said; “ I only quite understand my sentence 
and the crucifix which tells us the Son of 
God died for man. That must have been 
from love, and I love him; and all the rest I 
am content to leave.” 

But to-night as I look at her dear childlike 
face asleep on the pillow, and see how thin 
the cheek is which those long lashes shade, 
and how transparent the little hand on which 
she rests, a cold fear comes over me lest 
God should even now be making her spirit 
“ fair enough for him,” and so too fair for 
earth and for us. 

April 4. 

This afternoon I was quite cheered by 
seeing Christopher and Pollux bending to¬ 
gether eagerly over a book, which they had 
placed before them on the windowsill. It 
reminded me of Fritz, and I went up to see 
what they were reading. 

I found, however, to my dismay it was no 
church-book or learned Latin school-book; 
but, on the contrary, a German book full of 
woodcuts, which shocked me very much. 
It was called Reinecke Fuchs, and as far as 
I could understand made a jest of every¬ 
thin o-. There were foxes with monk’s 
frocks and even in cardinal’s hats, and 
wolves in cassocks with shaven crowns. 
Altogether it seemed to me a very profane 
and 'perilous book, but when I took it to 
our father, to my amazement he seemed as 
much amused with it as the boys, and said 



58 


THE SCHONBERG-COTTA FAMILY. 


there were evils in the world which were 
better attacked by jests than by sermons. 

April , St. Mark’s Day. 

I have just heard a sermon about despis¬ 
ing the'world, from a great preacher, one 
of the Dominican friars who is going through 
the land to awaken people to religion, 

He spoke especially against money, which 
lie called delusion, and dross, and worthless 
dust, and a soul-destroying canker. To 
monks no doubt it may be so. For what 
could they they do with it ? But it is 
not so to me. Yesterday money filled my 
heart with one of the purest joys I have 
ever known, and made me thank God as I 
hardly ever thanked him before. 

The time had come round to pay for some 
of the printing-materials, and we did not 
know where to turn for the sum we needed. 
Lately I have been employing my leisure 
hours in embroidering some tine Venetian 
silk Aunt Ursula gave me; and not having 
any copies, I had brought in some fresh 
leaves and flowers from the forest and tried 
to imitate them, hoping to sell them. 

When I had finished, it was thought 
pretty, and I carried it to the merchant, who 
took the father’s precious unfinished clock. 

He has always been kind to us since, and 
has procured us ink and paper at a cheaper 
rate than others can buy it. 

When I showed him my work he seemed 
surprised, and instead of showing it to his 
wife, as I had expected, he said smiling,— 

“ These things are not for poor honest 
burghers like me. You know my wife 
might be fined by the sumptuary laws if she 
aped the nobility by wearing anything so 
fine as this. I am going to the Wartburg 
to speak about a commission I have execut¬ 
ed for the Elector Frederick, and if you 
like I will take you and your embroidery 
with me.” 

I felt dismayed at first at such an idea, 
but I had on the new dress Fritz gave me a 
year ago, and I resolved to venture. 

It was so many years since I had passed 
through that massive gateway into the great 
court-yard; and I thought of St. Elizabeth 
distributing loaves, perhaps, at that very 
gate, and entreated her to make the Elector 
or the ladies of his court propitious to me. 

I was left standing, what seemed to me a 
long time, in an ante-room. Some very 
gaily-dressed gentlemen and ladies passed 
me and looked at me rather scornfully. I 


thought the courtiers were not much im¬ 
proved since the days when they were so 
rude to St. Elizabeth. 

But t at last I was summoned into the 
Elector’s presence. I trembled very much, 
for I thought—If the servants are so | 
haughty, what will the master be ? But he 
smiled on me quite kindly, and said, “ My 
good child, I like this work of thine; and 
this merchant tells me thou art a dutiful 
daughter. I will purchase this at once for 
one of my sisters, and pay thee at once!” 

I was so surprised and delighted with his 
kindness that 1 cannot remember the exact 
words of what he said afterwards, but the 
substance of them was that the Elector is 
building a new church at his new University 
town of Wittenberg, which is to have 
choicer relics than any church in Germany. 
And I am engaged to embroider altar- 
cloths and coverings for the reliquaries. 
And the sum already paid me nearly covers 
our present debt. 

No, whatever that Dominican preacher 
might say, nothing would ever persuade me 
that these precious guldens which I took 
home yesterday evening with a heart brim¬ 
ming over with joy and thankfulness, which 
made our father clasp his hands in thanks¬ 
giving, and our mother’s eyes overflow with 
happy tears, is delusion, or dross, or dust. 

Is it not what we make it? Dust in the 
miser’s chests; canker in the proud man’s 
heart; but golden sunbeams, streams of 
blessing earned by a child’s labor and 
comforting a parent’s heart, or lovingly 
poured from rich men’s hands into poor 
men’s homes. 

April 20. 

Better days seem dawning at last. Dr. 
Martin, who preaches now at the Elector’s 
new University of Wittenberg, must, we 
think, have spoken to the Elector for us, 
and our father is appointed to superintend 
the printing-press, especially for Latin 
books, which is to be set up there. 

And sweeter even than this, it is from 
Fritz that this boon comes to us. Fritz, dear 
unselfish Fritz, is the benefactor of the fam¬ 
ily after all. It was he who asked Dr. Martin 
Luther to speak for us. There, in his lonely 
cell at Erfurt, he thinks then of us ! And he 
prays for us. He will never forget us. His 
new name will not alter his heart. And, 
perhaps, one day when the novitiate is over, 
we may see him again. But to see him as no 





FRITZ’S STORY. 


59 


more our Fritz, but brother Sebastian— his 
home, the Augustinian cloister—his mother, 
the Church—his sisters, all holy women— 
would it not be almost worse than not seeing 
him at all ? 

We are all to move to Wittenberg in a 
month, except Pollux, who is to remain with 
Cousin Conrad Cotta, to learn to be a 
merchant. 

Christopher begins to help about the 
printing. 

There was another thing also in my visit 
to the Wartburg, which gives me many a 

S 'eam of joy when I think of it. If the 
lector whose presence I so trembled to 
enter, proved so much more condescending 
and accessible than his courtiers,—oh, if it 
could only be possible that we are making 
some mistake about God, and that he after 
all may be more gracious and ready to listen 
to us than his priests, or even than the 
saints who wait on him in his palace in 
heaven l 

VIII. 

FRITZ’S STORY. 

Erfurt, A.ugustinian Convent, April 1 . 

I SUPPOSE conflict of mind working on 
a constitution weakened by the plague, 
brought on the illness from which I am 
just recovering. It is good to feel strength 
returning as I do. There is a kind of 
natural, irresistible delight in life, however 
little we have to live for, especially to one 
so little prepared to die as I am. As I write, 
the rooks are cawing in the churchyard 
elms, disputing and chattering like a set of 
busy prosaic burghers. But retired from 
all this noisy public life, two thrushes have 
built their nest in a thorn just under the 
window of my cell. And early in the 
morning they wake me with song. One 
flies hither and thither as busy as a bee, 
with food for his mate, as she broods 
secure among the thick leaves, and then he 
perches on a twig, and sings as if he had 
nothing to do but to be happy. All is 
pleasure to him, no doubt—the work as well 
as the singing. Happy the creatures for 
whom it is God’s will that they should live 
according to their nature, and not contrary 
to it. 

Probably in the recovering from illness, 
when the body is still weak, yet thrilling 
with reviving strength, the heart is especially 


tender, and yearns more towards home and 
former life than it will when strength 
returns and brings duties. Or, perhaps 
this illness recalls the last,—and the loving 
faces and soft hushed voices that were 
around me then. 

Yet 1 have nothing to complain of. My 
aged confessor has scarcely left my bedside. 
From the first he brought his bed into my 
cell, and watched over me like a father. 

And his words minister to my heart as 
much as his hands to my bodily wants. 

If my spirit would only take the comfort 
he offers, as easily as I receive food and 
medicine from his hands ! 

He does not attempt to combat my diffi¬ 
culties one by one. He says,— 

“I am little of a physician. I cannot 
lay my hand on the seat of disease. But 
there is One*who can.” And to him I 
know the simple-hearted old man prays for 
me. 

Often he recurs to the declaration in the 
creed, “ I believe in the forgiveness of sins.” 
“ It is the command of God;” he said to me 
one day “that we should believe in the 
forgiveness of sins, not of David’s or 
Peter’s sins, but of ours, our own, the very 
sins that distress our consciences.” He also 
quoted a sermon of St. Bernard’s on the 
annunciation. 

“ The testimony of the Holy Ghost given 
in thy heart is this, * Thy sins are forgiven 
thee.’ ” 

Yes, forgiven to all penitents ! But who 
can assure me I am a true penitent ? 

These words, he told me, comforted 
Brother Martin, and he wonders they do 
not comfort me. I suppose Brother Martin 
had the testimony of the Holy Ghost in 
his heart; but who shall give that to me ? 
to me who resisted the vocation of the Holy 
Ghost so long, who in my deepest heart 
obey it so imperfectly still ! 

Brother Martin was faithful, honest, 
thorough, single hearted,—all that God 
accepts; all that I am not. 

The affection and compassion of my aged 
confessor often, however, comfort me, even 
when his words have little power. They 
make me feel a dim hope now and then that 
the Lord he serves may have something of 
the same pity in his heart. 

Erfurt, April 15. 

The Vicar-General, Staupitz, has visited 
our convent. I have confessed to him. He 
was very gentle to me, and to my surprise 





60 


THE SGHONBERG-COTTA FAMILY . 


prescribed me scarcely any penance, al¬ 
though I endeavored to unveil all to him. 

Once he murmured, as if to himself, 
looking at me with a penetrating compas¬ 
sion, “ Yes, there is no drawing back. But 
I wish I had known this before.” And 
then he added to me, “ Brother, we must 
not confuse suffering with sin. It is sin to 
turn back. It may be anguish to look back 
amUsee what we have renounced, but it is 
not necessarily sin, if we resolutely press 
forward still. And if sin mingles with the 
regret, remember we have to do not with a 
painted, but a real Saviour; and he died not 
for painted, but for real sins. Sin is never 
overcome by looking at it, but by looking 
away from it to Him who bore our sins, 
yours and mine, on the cross. The heart is 
never won back to God by thinking we 
ought to love him, but by learning what he 
is, all worthy of our love. True repentance 
begins with the love of God. The Holy 
Spirit teaches us to know, and, therefore, to 
love God. Fear not, but read the Scriptures, 
and pray. He will employ thee in his ser¬ 
vice yet, and in his favor is life, and in his 
service is freedom.” 

This confession gave me great comfort for 
the time. I felt myself understood, and yet 
not despaired of. And that evening, after 
repeating the Hours, I ventured in my own 
words to pray to God, and found it solemn 
and sweet. 

But since then my old fear has recurred. 
Did 1 indeed confess completely even to the 
Vicar General ? If I had, would not his 
verdict have been different? Does not the 
very mildness of his judgment prove that 1 
have once more deceived myself—made a 
false confession, and, therefore, failed of 
the absolution ? But it is a relief to have 
his positive command as my superior to 
study the Holy Scriptures, instead of the 
scholastic theologians, to whose writings my 
preceptor had lately been exclusively direct¬ 
ing my studies. 

April 25. 

I have this day, to my surprise, received a 
command, issuing from the Vicar-General, 
to prepare set off on a mission to Rome. 

The monk under whose direction I am to 
journey I do not yet know. 

The thought of the new scenes we shall 
pass through, and the wonderful new world 
we shall enter on, new and old, fills me 
with an almost childish delight. Since I 
heard it, my heart and conscience seem to 


have become strangely lightened, which 
proves, I fear, how little real earnestness 
there is in me. 

Another thing, however, has comforted 
me greatly. In the course of my confession 
1 spoke to the Vicar-General about my 
family, and he has procured for my father 
an appointment as superintendent of the 
Latin printing press, at the Elector’s new 
University of Wittenberg. 

I trust now that the heavy pressure of 
pecuniary care which has weighed so long 
on my mother and Else will be relieved. It 
would have been sweeter to me to have 
earned this relief for them by my own exer¬ 
tions. But we must not choose the shape or 
the time in which divine messengers shall 
appear. 

The Vicar-General has, moreover, pre¬ 
sented me with a little volume of sermons 
by a pious. Dominican friar, named Tauler. 
These are wonderfully deep and heart¬ 
searching. 1 find it difficult to reconcile the 
sublime and enrapt devotion to God which 
inspires them with the minute rules of our 
order, the details of scholastic casuistry, and 
the precise directions as to the measure 
of worship and honor, Dulia, Hyperdulia, 
and Latria to be paid to the various orders 
of heavenly beings, which make prayer 
often seem as perplexing to me as the cere¬ 
monial of the imperial court would to a 
peasant of the Tliiiringen forest. 

This Dominican speaks as if we might 
soar above all these lower things, and lose 
ourselves in the One Ineffable Source, 
Ground, Beginning, and End of all Being; 
the One who is all. 

Dearer to me, however, than this, is an old 
manuscript in our convent library, contain¬ 
ing the confessions of the patron of our 
order himself, the great Father Augustine. 

Straight from his heart it penetrates into 
mine, as if spoken to me to-day. Passion¬ 
ate, fervent, struggling, wandering, tremb¬ 
ling, adoring heart, I feel its pulses through 
every line 1 

And was this the experience of one who 
is now a saint on the most glorious heights 
of heaven? 

Then the mother! Patient, lowly, noble, 
saintly Monica; mother, and more than 
martyr. She rises before me in the likeness 
of a beloved form I may remember without 
sin, even here, even now c St- Monica speaks 
to me with my mother’s voice; and in the 
narrative of her prayers it seem to gain a 



FRITZ'S STORY. 


61 


deeper insight into what my mother’s have 
been for me. 

St. Augustine was happy, to breathe the 
last words of comfort to her himself as 
he did, to be with her, dwelling in one house 
to the last. This can scarcely be given 
to me. “That sweet, dear habit of living 
together” is broken for ever between us; 
broken by my deliberate act. “For the 
glory of God;” may God accept it; if not, 
may lie forgive. 

That old manuscript is worn with reading. 
It lias lain in the convent library for certainly 
more than a hundred years. Generation 
after generation of those who now lie sleep¬ 
ing in the held of God below our windows 
have turned over those pages. Heart after 
heart has doubtless come, as I came, to con¬ 
sult the oracle of that deep heart of old 
times, so nearly shipwrecked, so gloriously 
saved. 

As I read the old thumbed volume, a 
company of spirits seem to breathe in fel¬ 
lowship around me, and I think how many, 
strengthened by these words, are perhaps 
even now, like him who penned them, 
amongst the spirits of the just made perfect. 

In the convent library, the dead seem to 
live again around me. In the cemetery are 
the relics of the corruptible body. Among 
these worn volumes I feel the breath of the 
living spirits of generations passed away. 

I must say, however, there is more oppor¬ 
tunity for solitary communion with the de¬ 
parted in that library than I could wish. 
The books are not so much read, certainly, 
in these days, as the Vicar-General would 
desire, although the Augustinian has the 
reputation of being among the more learned 
orders. 

I often question what brought many of 
these easy, comfortable monks here. But 
many of the faces give no reply to iny 
search. No history seems written on them. 
The wrinkles seem mere ruts of the wheels 
of time, not furrows sown with the seeds of 
thought,—happy at least if they are not as 
fissures rent by the convulsions of inward 
fires. 

i suppose many of the brethren became 
monks just as other men become tailors 
or shoemakers, and with no further spiritual 
aim, because their parents planned it so. 
But I may wrong even the meanest in say¬ 
ing so. ( The shallowest human heart has 
depths somewhere, let them be crusted over 


by ice ever so thick, or veiled by flowers 
ever so fair .) 

And I—I and this unknown brother are 
actually about to journey to Italy, the 
glorious land of sunshine, and vines, and 
olives, and ancient cities—the land of Rome, 
imperial, saintly Rome, where countless 
martyrs sleep, where St. Augustine and 
Monica sojourned, where St. Paul and 4 St. 
Peter preached and suffered,—where the 
vicar of Christ lives and reigns. 

May 1. 

The brother with whom I am to make the 
pilgrimage to Rome arrived last night. To 
my inexpressible delight it is none other 
than Brother Martin—Martin Luther—Pro¬ 
fessor of Theology in the Elector’s new 
University of Wittenberg, He is much 
changed again since I saw him last toiling 
through the streets of Erfurt with the sack 
on his shoulder. The hollow, worn look, 
has disappeared from his face, and the fire 
has come back to his eyes. Their ex¬ 
pression varies, indeed, often from the 
sparkle of merriment to a grave earnestness, 
when all their light seems withdrawn in¬ 
ward; but underneath there is that kind of 
repose I have noticed in the countenance of 
my aged confessor. 

Brother Martin’s face has, indeed, a his¬ 
tory written on it, and a history, I deem, 
not yet finished. 

Heidelberg, May 25. 

I wondered at the lightness of heart with 
which I set out on our journey from Erfurt. 

The Vicar-General himself accompanied 
us hither. We travelled partly on horse¬ 
back, and partly in wheeled carriages. 

The conversation turned much on the 
prospects of the new University, and the 
importance of finding good professors of 
the ancient languages for it. Brother Mar¬ 
tin himself proposed to make use of his 
sojourn at Rome, to improve himself in 
Greek and Hebrew, by studying under the 
learned Greeks and rabbis there. They 
counsel me also to do the same. 

The business which calls us to Rome is an 
appeal to the Holy Father, concerning a 
dispute between some convents of our Order 
and the Vicar-General. 

But they say business is slowly conducted 
at Rome, and will leave us much time for 
other occupations, besides those which are 
most on our hearts, namely, paying homage 
at the tombs of the holy apostles and mar¬ 
tyrs. 



62 THE SCHONBERG-COTTA FAMILY. 


They speak most respectfully and cordially 
of the Elector Frederic, who must indeed 
be a very devout prince. Not many years 
since he accomplished a pilgrimage to Jeru¬ 
salem, and took with him the painter Lucas 
Cranach, to make drawings of the various 
holy places. 

About ten years since, he built a church 
dedicated to St. Ursula, on the site of the 
small chapel erected in 1353, over the Holy 
Thorn from the Crown of Thorns, presented 
to a former Elector by the king of France. 

This church is already, they say, through 
the Elector Frederic’s diligence, richer in 
relics than any church in Europe, except 
that of Assisi, the birthplace of St. Francis. 
And the collection is still continually being 
increased. 

They showed me a book printed at Wit¬ 
tenberg a year or two since, entitled “A 
Description of the Venerable Belies,” 
adorned with one hundred and nineteen 
wood-cuts. 

The town itself seems to be still poor and 
mean compared with Eisenach and Erfurt; 
and the students, of whom there are now 
nearly live hundred, are at times very tur¬ 
bulent. There is much beer-drinking among 
them. In 1507, three years since, the Bishop 
of Brandenburg laid the whole city- under 
interdict for some insult offered by the stu¬ 
dents to his suite, and now they are forbid¬ 
den to wear guns, swords or knives. 

Brother Martin, however, is full of hope 
as to the good to be done among them. He 
himself received the degree of Biblicus (Bible 
teacher) on the 9th of March last year; and 
every day he lectures between twelve and 
one o’clock. 

Last summer, for the first time, he was 
persuaded by the Vicar-General to preach 
publicly. I heard some conversation be¬ 
tween them in reference to this, which 
afterwards Brother Martin explained to me. 

Dr. Staupitz and Brother Martin were 
sitting last summer in the convent garden at 
Wittenberg together, under the shade of a 
pear tree, whilst the Vicar-General endeav¬ 
ored to prevail on him to preach. He was 
exceedingly unwilling to make the attempt. 
“ It is no little matter,” said he to Dr. Stau¬ 
pitz, “to appear before the people in the 
place of God. I had fifteen arguments,” 
he continued in relating it, “ wherewith I 
purposed to resist my vocation; but they 
availed nothing.” At the last I said, “ Dr. 
Staupitz you will be the death of me, for I 


cannot live under it three months.” “Very 
well,” replied Dr. Staupitz, “ still go on. 
Our Lord God hath many great things to 
accomplish, and he has need of wise men 
in heaven as well as on earth.” 

Brother Martin could not further resist, 
and after making a trial before the brethren 
in the refectory, at last, with a trembling 
heart he mounted the pulpit of the little 
chapel of the Augustinian cloister. 

“When a preacher for the first time enters 
the pulpit,” he concluded, “ no one would 
believe how fearful he is; he sees so many 
heads before him. When I go into the pul¬ 
pit, I do not look on any one. I think them 
only to be so many blocks before me, and I 
speak out the words of my God.” 

And yet Dr, Staupitz says his words are 
like thunder-peals. Yet! do I say? Is it 
not because f He feels himself nothing; 
he feels his message everything; he feels 
God present. What more could be needed 
to make a man of his power a great 
preacher ? 

With such discourse the journey seemed 
accomplished quickly indeed. And yet, 
almost the happiest hours to me were those 
when we were all silent, and the new scenes 
passed rapidly before me. It was a great 
rest to live for a time on what I saw, and 
cease from thought, and remembrance, and 
inward questionings altogether. For have 
I not been commanded this journey by my 
superiors, so that in accordance with my 
vow of obedience, my one duty at present 
is to travel; and therefore what pleasure 
it chances to bring 1 must not refuse. 

We spent some hours in Nuremberg. The 
quaint rich carvings of many of the houses 
were beautiful. There also we saw Albrecht 
Durer’s paintings, and heard Hans Sachs, 
the shoemaker and poet, sing his godly 
German hymns. And as we crossed the 
Bavarian plains, the friendliness of the sim¬ 
ple peasantry made up to us for the same¬ 
ness of the country. 

Near Heidelberg again I fancied myself 
once more in the Thiiringen forest, especi¬ 
ally as we rested in the convent of Erbacli 
in the Odenwald. Again the familiar forests 
and green valleys with their streams were 
around me. I fear Else and the others will 
miss the beauty of the forest-covered hills 
around Eisenach, when they remove to 
Wittenberg, which is situated on a barren, 
monotonous flat. About this time they will 
be moving! 





FRITZ’S STORY. 


63 


brother Martin has held many disputa¬ 
tions on theological and philosophical ques¬ 
tions in the University of Heidelberg; but 
I, being only a novice, have been free to 
svander whither I would. 

This evening it was delightful to stand in 
the woods of the Elector Palatine’s castle, 
and from among the oaks and delicate 
bushes rustling about me, to look down on 
the hills of the Odenwald folding over each 
other. Far up among them I traced the 
narrow, quiet Neckar, issuing from the 
silent depths of the forest; while on the 
other side, below the city, it wound on 
through the plain to the lthine, gleaming 
here and there with the gold of sunset or 
the cold gray light of the evening. Beyond, 
far off, I could see the masts of ships on the 
Rhine. 

I scarcely know why, the river made me 
think of life, of mine and Brother Martin’s. 
Already he has left the shadow of the 
forests. Who can say what people his life 
will bless, what sea it will reach, and through 
what perils ? Of this I feel sure, it will 
matter much to many what its course shall 
be. For me it is otherwise. My life, as far 
as earth is concerned, seems closed,—ended; 
and it can matter little to any, henceforth, 
through what regions it passes, if only it 
reaches the ocean at last, and ends, as they 
say, in the bosom of God. If only we could 
be sure that God guides the course of our 
lives as he does that of rivers. And yet, do 
they not say that some rivers even lose 
themselves in sand-wastes, ond others trickle 
meanly to the sea through lands they have 
desolated into untenantable marshes I 

Black Forest, May 14,1510. 
Brother Martin and I are now fairly on 
our pilgrimage alone, walking all day, beg¬ 
ging our provisions and ourlodgings, which 
he "sometimes repays with performing a 
mass in the parish church, or a promise of 
reciting certain prayers or celebrating masses 
on the behalf of our benefactors, at Rome. 

These are, indeed, precious days. My 
whole frame seems braced and revived by 
the early rising, the constant movement in 
the pure air, the pressing forward to a 
definite point. 

But more, infinitely more than this, my 
heart seems reviving. I begin to have a 
hope and see a light which, until now, I 
scarcely deemed possible. 

To encourage me in my perplexities and 


conflicts, Brother Martin unfolded to me 
what his own had been. To the storm of 
doubt, and fear, and anguish in that great 
heart of his, my troubles seem like a passing 
spring shower. Yet to me they were tem¬ 
pests which laid my heart waste. And God, 
Brother Martin believes, does not measure 
his pity by what our sorrows are in them¬ 
selves, but what they are to us. Are we not 
all children in his sight ? 

“ I did not learn my divinity at once,” he 
said, “ but was constrained by my tempta¬ 
tions to search deeper and deeper; for no 
man without trials and temptations can at¬ 
tain a true understanding of the Holy Scrip¬ 
tures. St. Paul had a devil that beat him 
with fists, and with temptations drove him 
diligently to study the Holy Scriptures. 
Temptations hunted me into the Bible, 
wherein I sedulously read; and thereby, 
God be praised, at length attained a true 
understanding of it.” 

He then related to me what some of these 
temptations were;—the bitter disappoint¬ 
ment it was to him to find that the cowl, and 
even the vows and the priestly consecration 
made no change in his heart; that Satan was 
as near him in the cloister as outside, and he 
no stronger to cope with him. He told me 
of his endeavors to keep every minute rule 
of the order, and how the slightest deviation 
weighed on his conscience. It seems to 
have been like trying to restrain a fire by a 
fence of willows, or to guide a mountain- 
torrent in artificial windings through a 
flower-garden, to bind his fervent nature by 
these vexatious rules. He was continually 
becoming absorbed in some thought or 
study, and forgetting all the rules, and then 
painfully he would "turn back and retrace 
his steps; sometimes spending weeks in ab¬ 
sorbing study, and then remembering he 
had neglected his canonical hours, and de¬ 
priving himself of sleep for nights to make 
up the missing prayers. 

He fasted, disciplined himself, humbled 
himself to perform the meanest offices for 
the meanest brother; forcibly kept sleep 
from his eyes, wearied with study, and his 
mind worn out with conflict, until every now 
and then nature avenged herself by laying 
him unconscious on the floor of his cell, or 
disabling him by a fit of illness. + 

But all in vain; his temptations seemed to 
grow stronger, his strength less. Love to 
God he could not feel at all; but in his 
secret soul the bitterest questioning of God, 






64 


THF SCHONBEIRG^COTTA FAMILY. 


who seemed to torment him at once by the 
law and the gospel. He thought of Christ 
as the severest judge, because the most 
righteous; and the very phrase, “ the right¬ 
eousness of God,” was torture to him. 

Not that this state of distress was continual 
with him. At times he gloried in his obe¬ 
dience, and felt that he earned rewards 
from God by performing the sacrifice of the 
mass, not only for himself, but for others. 
At times, also, in his circuits, after his con¬ 
secration, to say mass in the villages around 
Erfurt, he would feel his spirits lightened 
by the variety of the scenes he witnessed, 
and would be greatly amused at the ridicu¬ 
lous mistakes of the village choirs; for in¬ 
stance, their chanting the “Eyrie” to the 
music of the “ Gloria.” 

Then, at other times, his limbs would tot¬ 
ter with terror when he offered the holy 
sacrifice, at the thought that he, the sacrific¬ 
ing priest, yet the poor, sinful Brother Mar¬ 
tin, actually stood before God “ without 
a Mediator.” 

At his first mass he had difficulty in re¬ 
straining himself from flying from the 
altar—so great was his awe and the sense of 
his unworthiness. Had he done so, he 
would have been excommunicated. 

Again, there were days when he perform¬ 
ed the services with some satisfaction, and 
would conclude with saying, “OLord Jesus, 

I come to thee, and entreat thee to be 
pleased with whatsoever 1 do and suffer in 
my order; and I pray thee that these bur¬ 
dens and this straitness of my rule and relig¬ 
ion may be a full satisfaction for all my 
sins.” Yet then again, the dread would 
come that perhaps he had inadvertently 
omitted some word in the service, such as 
“ enim” or seternum,” or neglected some 
prescribed genuflexion, or even a signing of 
the cross; and that thus, insetad of ^offering 
to God an acceptable sacrifice in the mass, 
he had committed a grievous sin. 

From such terrors of conscience he fled 
for refuge to some of his twenty-one patron 
saints, or oftener to Mary, seeking to touch 
her womanly heart, that she might appease 
her son. He hoped that by invoking three 
saints daily, and by letting his body waste 
away with fastings and watchings, he should 
satisfy the law, and shield his conscience 
against the goad of the driver. But it all 
availed him nothing. The further he went 
on in this way, the'more he was terrified. 
And then he related to me how the light 


broke upon his heart; slowly, intermittent¬ 
ly, indeed; yet it has dawned on him. His 
day may often be dark and tempestuous, 
but it is day, and not night. 

Dr, Staupitz was the first who brought 
him any comfort. The Vicar-General re¬ 
ceived iiis confession not long after he 
entered the cloister, and from that time won 
his confidence, and took the warmest inter¬ 
est in him. Brother Martin frequently wrote 
to him; and once he used the words, in 
reference to some neglect of the rules which 
troubled his conscience, “ Oh, my sins, my 
sins 1” Dr. Staupitz replied, “ You would 
be without sin, and yet you have no proper 
sins. Christ forgives true sins, such as par¬ 
ricide, blasphemy, contempt of God, adul¬ 
tery, and sins like these. These are sins 
indeed. You must have a register in which 
stand veritable sins, if Christ is to help you. 
You would be a painted sinner, and have a 
painted Christ as a Saviour. You must make 
up your mind that Christ is a real Saviour, 
and you a real sinner.” 

These words brought some light to Brother 
Martin, but the darkness came back again 
and again; and tenderly did Dr. Staupitz, 
sympathize with him and rouse him—Dr. 
Staupitz, and that dear, aged confessor, who 
ministered also so lovingly to me. 

Brother Martin’s great terror was the 
thought of the righteousness of God, by 
which he had been taught to understand his 
inflexible severity in executing judgment on 
sinners. 

Dr. Staupitz and the confessor explained 
to him that the righteousness of God is not 
against the sinner who believes in the Lord 
Jesus Christ, but for him—not against us to 
condemn, but for us to justify. 

He began to study the Bible with a new 
zest. He had had the greatest longing to 
understand rightly the Epistle of St. Paul to 
the Komans, but was always stopped by the 
word “righteousness” in the 1st chapter and 
17th verse, where Paul says the righteousness 
of God is revealed by the gospel. “ I felt 
very angry,” he said, “at the term ‘right¬ 
eousness of God;’ for, after the manner of 
all the teachers, I was taught to understand 
it in a philosophic sense, of that righteous¬ 
ness by which God is just and punisheth the 
guilty. Though I had lived without re¬ 
proach, I felt myself to be a great sinner 
before God, and was of a very quick con¬ 
science, and had not confidence in a recon¬ 
ciliation with God to be produced by any 





FRITZ'S STORY. 


65 


work or satisfaction or merit of my own. 
For this cause, I had in me no love of a 
righteous and angry God, hut secretly hated 
him, and thought within myself, Is it not 
enough that God has condemned us to ever¬ 
lasting death by Adam’s sin, and that we 
must suffer so much trouble and misery in 
this life ? Over and above the terror and 
threatening of the law, must he needs in¬ 
crease by the gospel our misery and anguish, 
and, by the preaching of the same, thunder 
against us his justice and fierce wrath ? My 
confused conscience ofttimes did cast me 
into fits of anger, and I sought day and 
night to make out the meaning of Paul; and 
at last I came to apprehend it thus: Through 
the gospel is revealed the righteousness 
which availeth with God—a righteousness by 
which God, in his mercy and compassion, 
justifieth us; as it is written, ‘ The just shall 
live by faith.'' Straightway I felt as if I 
were born anew; it was as if I had found 
the door of paradise thrown wide open. 
Now I saw the Scriptures altogether in a 
new light—ran through their whole con¬ 
tents as far as my memory would serve, and 
compared them—and found that this right¬ 
eousness was the more surely that by which 
he makes us righteous, because everything 
agreed thereunto so well, The expression, 
‘ the righteousness of God,’ which I so much 
hated before, became now dear and prec¬ 
ious—my darling aud most comforting 
word. That passage of Paul was to me the 
true door of paradise.” 

Brother Martin also told me of the peace 
the words, “ I believe in the forgiveness of 
sins,” brought to him, as the aged con¬ 
fessor had previously narrated to me; for, 
he said, the devil often plucked him back, 
and, taking the very form of Christ, sought 
to terrify him again with his sins. 

As I listened to him, the conviction came 
on me that he had indeed drunk of the 
well-spring of everlasting life, and it 
seemed almost within my own reach; but I 
said,— 

“ Blather Martin, your sins were mere 
transgressions of human rules, but mine are 
different.” And I told him how I had re¬ 
sisted my vocation. He replied,— 

“ The devil gives heaven to people before 
they sin; but after they sin, brings their 
consciences into despair. Christ deals quite 
in the contrary way, for he gives heaven 
after sins committed, and makes troubled 
consciences joyful.” 


Then we fell into a long silence, and 
from time to time, as I looked at the calm 
which reigned on his rugged and massive 
brow, and felt the deep light in his dark 
eyes, the conviction gathered strength,— 

“ This solid thing on which that tempest- 
tossed spirit rests in Truth.” 

His lips moved now and then, as if in 
prayer, and his eyes were lifted up from 
time to time to heaven, as if his thoughts 
found a home there. 

After this silence, he spoke again, and 
said,— 

“The gospel speaks nothing of our 
works, oi- of the works of the law, but of 
the inestimable mercy and love of God to¬ 
wards most wretched and miserable sin¬ 
ners. Our most merciful Father, seeing us 
overwhelmed and oppressed with the curse 
of the law, aud so to be holtlen under the 
same that we could never be delivered from 
it by our own power, sent his only Son into 
the world, and laid upon him the sins of all 
men, saying, ‘ Be thou Peter, that denier; 
Paul, that persecutor, blasphemer, and 
cruel oppressor; David, that adulterer; that 
sinner that did eat the apple in paradise; 
that thief that hanged upon the cross; and 
briefly, be thou the person that hath com¬ 
mitted the sins of all men, and pay and 
satisfy for them.’ For God trifleth not 
with us, but speaketh earnestly and of 
great love, that Christ is the Lamb of God 
who beareth the sins of us all. He is just, 
and the justifier of him that believeth in 
Jesus.” 

I could answer nothing to this, but 
walked along pondering these words. 
Neither did he say any more at that time. 

The sun was sinking low, and the long 
shadows of the pine trunks were thrown 
athwart our green forest-path, so that we 
were glad to find a charcoal-burner’s hut, 
and to take shelter for the night beside his 
fires. 

But that night 1 could not sleep; and 
when all were sleeping around me, I arose 
amVwent out into the forest. 

Brother Martin is not a man to parade 
his inmost conflicts before the eyes of 
others, to call forth their sympathy or 
their idle wonder. He has suffered too 
deeply and too recently for that. It is not 
lightly that he has unlocked the dungeons 
and torture-chambers of his past life for 
me, It is as a fellow-sufferer and a fellow- 





66 


THE SCHONBERG-COTTA FAMILY , 


soldier, to show me how 1 also may escape 
and overcome. 

It is surely because he is to be a hero and 
a leader of men that God has caused him to 
tread these bitter ways alone. 

A new meaning dawns on old words for 
me. There is nothing new in what he 
says; but it seems new to me, as if God had 
spoken it first to-day; and all things seem 
made new in its light. 

God, then, is more earnest for me to be 
saved than I am to be saved. 

“ He so loved the world, that he gave his 
Son.” 

He loved not saints, not penitents, not 
the religious, not those who loved him; but 
the world, secular men, profane men, hard¬ 
ened rebels, hopeless wanderers, and sin¬ 
ners. 

He gave not a promise, not an angel to 
teach us, not a world to ransom us, but his 
Son—his Oidy-begotten. 

So much did God love the world, sinners, 
me ! I believe this; I must believe this; I 
believe on him who says it. How can I 
then do otherwise than rejoice ? 

Two glorious visions rise before me and 
fill the world and all my heart with joy. 

I see the Holiest, the Perfect, the Son 
made the victim, the lamb, the curse, will¬ 
ingly yielding himself up to death on the 
cross for me. 

I see the Father—inflexible in justice yet 
delighting in mercy—accepting him, the 
spotless Lamb whom he had given; raising 
him from the dead; setting him on his right 
hand. Just, beyond all my terrified con¬ 
science could picture him, he justifies me 
the sinner. 

Hating sin as love must abhor selfishness, 
and life death, and purity corruption, lie 
loves me—the selfish, the corrupt, the dead 
in sins. He gives his Son, the Only-begot¬ 
ten, for me; he accepts his Son, the spotless 
Lamb, for me; he forgives me; he acquits 
me; he will make me pure. 

The thought overpowered me. I knelt 
among the pines and spoke to Him, who 
hears when we have no words, for words 
failed me altogether then. 

Munich,' May 18. 

All the next day and the next that joy 
lasted. Every twig, and bird, and dew- 
drop spoke in parables to me; sang to me 
the parable of the son who had returned 
from the far country, and as he went 


towards his father’s house prepared his 
confession; but never finished the journey, 
for the father met him when he was yet a 
great way off; and never finished the con¬ 
fession, for the father stopped his self- 
reproaches with embraces. 

And on the father’s heart what child could 
say, “ Make me as one of thy hired 
servants?” 

I saw His love shining in every dew-drop 
on the grassy forest glades; 1 heard it in 
the song of every bird; I felt it in every 
pulse. 

I do not know that we spoke much during 
those days, Brother Martin and I. 

I have known something of love; but I have 
•never felt a love that so fills, overwhelms, 
satisfies, as this love of God. And when 
first it is “thou and I” between God and 
the soul, for a time, at least, the heart has 
little room for other fellowship. 

But then came doubts and questionings. 
Whence came they ? Brother Martin said 
from Satan. 

‘‘ The devil is a wretched, unhappy spirit,” 
said he, “ and he loves to make us wretch¬ 
ed.” 

One thing that began to trouble me was, 
whether I had the right kind of faith. Old 
definitions of faith recurred to me, by 
which faith is said to be nothing unless 
it is informed with charity and developed 
into good works, so that when it saith we 
are justified by faith, the part is taken for 
the whole,—and it rneanes by faith, also 
hope, charity, all the graces, and all*good 
works. 

But Brother Martin declared it meaneth 
simply believing. He said,— 

“ Faith is an almighty thing, for it giveth 
glory to God, which is the highest service 
that can be given to him. Now, to give 
glory to God, is to believe in him; to count 
him true, wise, righteous, merciful, al¬ 
mighty. The chiefest thing God requireth 
of man is, that he giveth unto him his 
glory and devinity; that is to say, that he 
taketh him not for an idol, but for God; 
who regardeth him, lieareth him, showeth 
mercy unto him, and helpeth him. For 
faith saith thus, ‘ I believe thee, O God, 
when thou speakest.’” 

But our great wisdom, he says, is to look 
away from all these questionings,—from 
our sms, our works, ourselves, to Christ, 
who is our righteousness, our Saviour, our 
all. 



FRITZS STORY. 


67 


Then at times other things perplex me. 
If faith is so simple, and salvation so free, 
why all those orders, rules, pilgrimages, 
penances ? 

And to these perplexities we can neither 
of us find any answer. But we must 
be obedient to the Church. What we can¬ 
not understand we must receive and obey. 
This is a monk’s duty, at least. 

Then at times another temptation comes 
on me. “ If thou hadst known of this be¬ 
fore,” a voice says deep in my heart, “ thou 
couldst have served God joyfully in thy 
house, instead of painfully in the cloister ; 
wouldst have helped thy parents and Else, 
and spoken with Eva on these things, 
which her devout and simple heart has 
doubtless received already.” But, alas! 1 
know too well what tempter ventures to 
suggest that name to me, and I say, “ What¬ 
ever might have been, malicious spirit, now 
1 am a religious, a devoted man, to whom 
it is perdition to draw back !” 

Yet, in a sense, I seem less separated 
from my beloved ones during these past 
days. 

There is a brotherhood, there is a family, 
more permanent than the home at Eisenach, 
or even the Order of St. Augustine, in 
which we may be united still. There is a 
home in which, perhaps, we may yet be 
one household. 

And meantime, God may have some little 
useful work for me to do here, which in 
his presence may make life pass as quickly 
as this my pilgrimage to Rome in Brother 
Martin’s company. 

Benedictine Monastery in Lombardy. 

God has given us during these last days 
to see, as I verily believe, some glimpses into 
Eden. The mountains with snowy sum¬ 
mits, like the white steps of His throne; 
the rivers which flow from them and enrich 
the land;the crystal seas, like glass mingled 
with fire, where the reflected snow-peaks 
burn in the lakes at dawn or sunset; and 
then this Lombard plain, watered with 
rivers which make its harvests gleam like 
goH; this garner of God, where the elms 
or chestnuts grow among the golden maize, 
and the vines festoon the trees, so that all 
the land seems garlanded for a perpetual 
holy day. We came through the Tyrol by 
Fiissen, and then struck across by the 
mountains and the lakes to Milan. 

Now we are entertained like princes in 
this rich Benedictine abbey. Its annual 


income is 36,000 florins. u Of eating and 
feasting,” as Brother Martin says, “there 
is no lack;” for that 12,000 florins are con¬ 
sumed on guests, and as large a sum on 
building. The residue goeth to the convent 
and the brethren. 

They have received us poor German 
monks with much honor, as a deputation 
from the great Augustinian order to the 
Pope. 

The manners of these southern people 
are very gentle and courteous; but they are 
lighter in their treatment of sacred^ things 
than we could wish. 

The splendor of the furniture and dress 
amazes us; it is difficult to reconcile it with 
the vows of poverty and renunciation of the 
world. But I suppose they regard the vow 
of poverty as binding not on the community, 
but only on the individual monk. It must, 
however, at the best, be hard to live a 
severe and ascetic life amidst such luxuries. 
Many, no doubt, do not try. 

The tables are supplied with the most 
costly and delicate viands; the walls are 
tapestried; the dresses are of fine silk; the 
floors are inlaid with rich marbles. 

Poor, poor splendors, as substitutes for 
the humblest home ! 

Bologna, June. 

We did not remain long in the Benedictine 
monastery, for this reason: Brother Martin, 
I could see, had been much perplexed by 
their luxurious living; but as a guest, had, 
I suppose, scarcely felt at liberty to remon¬ 
strate until Friday came, when, to our 
amazement, the table was covered with 
meats and fruits, and all kinds of viands, 
as on any other day, regardless not only of 
the rules of the order, but of the common 
laws of the whole Church. 

He would touch none of these dainties; 
but not content with this silent protest, he 
boldly said before the whole company, 
“The Church and the Pope forbid such 
things.” 

We had then an opportunity of seeing 
into what the smoothness of these Italian 
manners can change when ruffled. 

The whole brotherhood burst into a storm 
of indignation. Their dark eyes flashed, 
their white teeth gleamed with scornful and 
angry laughter, and their voices rose in a 
tempest of vehement words, many of which 
were unintelligible to us. 

“ Intruders,” “ barbarians,” “ coarse and 
ignorant Germans” and other biting epithets, 




G8 


TEE SC HONE ERG-COTTA FAMILY . 


however, we conic! too well understand. 

Brother Martin stood like a rock amidst 
the torrent, and threatened to make their 
luxury and disorder known at Rome. 

When the assembly broke up we noticed 
the brethren gather apart in small groups, 
and cast scowling glances at us when we 
chanced to pass near. 

That evening the porter of the monastery 
came to us privately, and warned us that 
this convent was no longer a safe resting- 
place for us. 

Whether this was a friendly warning, or 
merely a device of the brethren to get rid 
of troublesome guests, 1 know not; but we 
had had no wish to linger, and before the 
next clay dawned we crept in the darkness 
out of a side gate into a boat, which we 
found on the river which flows beneath the 
walls, and escaped. 

It was delightful to-day winding along 
the side of a hill, near Bologna, for miles, 
under the flickering shade of trellises cov¬ 
ered with vines. But Brother Martin, I 
thought, looked ill and weary. 

Bologna. 

Thank God, Brother Martin is reviving 
again, He has been on the very borders of 
the grave. 

Whether it was the scorching heat through 
which we have been travelling, or the mal¬ 
aria, which affected us with catarrh one 
night when we slept with our windows 
open, or whether the angry monks in the 
Benedictine Abbey mixed some poison with 
our food, I know not, but we had scarcely 
reached this place when he became seriously 
ill. 

As I watched beside him I learned some¬ 
thing of the anguish he passed through at 
our convent at Erfurt. The remembrance 
of his sins, and the terrors of God’s judg¬ 
ment rushed on his mind, weakened by 
suffering. At times he recognized that it 
was the hand of the evil one which was 
keeping him down. “The devil,” he would 
say, “is the accuser of the brethren, not 
Christ. Thou, Lord Jesus, art my forgiv¬ 
ing Saviour!” And then he would rise 
above the floods. Again his mind would 
bewilder itself with the unfathomable—the 
origin of evil, the relation of our free will 
to God’s almighty will. 

Then I ventured to recall to him the 
words of Dr. Staupitz he had repeated to 
me; “ Behold the wounds of Jesus Christ, 
and then thoushalt sec the counsel of God 


clearly shining forth. We cannot compre¬ 
hend God out of Jesus Christ. In Christ 
you will find what God is, and what he 
requires. You will find him nowhere else, 
whether in heaven or in earth.” 

It was strange to find myself, untried 
recruit that I am, thus attempting to give 
refreshment to such a veteran and victor as 
Brother Martin^but when the strongest are 
brought into single combats such as these, 
which must be single, a feeble hand may 
bring a draught of cold water to revive the 
hero between the pauses of the fight.J 

The victory, however, can only be won 
by the combatant himself; and at length 
Brother Martin fought his way through 
once more, and as so often, just when the 
fight seemed hottest. It was with an old 
weapon he overcame,— :i The just shall live 
by faith 

Once more the words which have helped 
him so often, which so frequently he has 
repeated on this journey, came with power 
to his mind. Again he looked to the cruci¬ 
fied Saviour; again he believed in Him tri¬ 
umphant and ready to forgive on the throne 
of grace; and again his spirit was in the 
light. 

His strength also soon began to return; 
and in a few days we are to be in Rome. 

Rome. 

The pilgrimage is over. The holy city is 
at length reached. 

Across burning plains, under trellised 
vine walks on the hill-sides, over wild, 
craggy mountains, through valleys green 
with chestnuts and olives and thickets of 
myrtle, and fragrant with lavender and 
cisrus, we walked, until at last the sacred 
towers and domes burst on our sight, across 
a reach of the Campagna; the city where 
St. Paul and St. Peter were martyred, the 
metropolis of the kingdom of God. 

The moment we came in sight of the city 
Brother Martin prostrated himself on the 
earth, and lifting up his hands to heaven, 
exclaimed,— 

“ Hail, sacred Rome ! thrice sacred for the 
blood of the martyrs here shed.” 

And now we are within the sacred walls, 
lodged in the Augustinian monastery, near 
to the northern gate, through which we en¬ 
tered, called by the Romans the “ Porta del 
Popolo.” 

Already Brother Martin has celebrated 
a mass in the convent church. 



69 


ELSE'8 

And tomorrow We may kneel where 
apostles and martyrs stood ! 

We may perhaps even see the holy father 
himself. 

Are we indeed nearer heaven here ? 

It seems to me as if I felt God nearer that 
night in the Black Forest. 

There is so much tumult and movement 
and pomp around us in the great city. 

When, however, I feel it more familiar 
and home-like, perhaps it will seem more 
heaven-like. 


IX. 

ELSE’S STORY. 

Eisenach, April . 

The last words I shall write in our dear 
old lumber-room, Fritz’s and mine ! I have 
little to regret in it now, however, that our 
twilight talks are over for ever. We leave 
early to-morrow morning for Wittenberg. 
It is strange to look out into the old street 
and think how all will look exactly the 
same there to-morrow evening, the monks 
slowly pacing along in pairs, the boys rusli- 
inagout of school as they are now, the maid¬ 
servants standing at the doors with the 
babe.*in their arms, or wringing their mops, 
—and we gone. Ho\y^small a blank people 
seem to make when they are gone, however 
large thespace they seemed to fill when they 
were present—except, indeed, to two or 
three -hearts ! I see this with Fritz. It 
seemed to me our little world must fall when 
he, its chief pillar, was withdrawn. Yet 
now everything seems to go on the same as 
before^ie became a monk,—except, indeed, 
wilhdhe mother, and Eva, and me. 

The mother seems more and more like a 
shadow gliding in and out among us. Ten¬ 
derly, indeed, she takes on her all she can 
of our family cares; but to family joys she 
seems spiritless and dead. Since she told 
me of the inclination she thinks she neglect¬ 
ed in her youth towards the cloister, I 
understand her better,—the trembling fear 
with which she receives any good thing, and 
the hopeless submission with which she 
bows to every trouble as to the blows'of a 
rod always suspended over her, and only 
occasionally mercifully withheld from strik- 
ing. 

In the loss of Fritz the blow has fallen 
exactly where she would feel it most keenly. 
She had, I feel sure, planned another life 
for him. I see it in the peculiar tenderness 


STORY. 

of the tie which binds her to Eva. She said 
to me to-day, as we were packing up some 
of Fritz’s books, “ The sacrifice I was too 
selfish to make myself, my son has made for 
me. Oh, Else, my child, give at once, 
at once, whatever God demands of you. 
What He demands must be given at last,— 
and if only wrung out from us at last, God 
only knows with what fearful interest the 
debt may have to be paid.” 

The words weigh on me like a curse. I 
cannot help feeling sometimes, as I know 
she feels always, that the family is under 
some fatal spell. 

But oh, how terrible the thought is that 
this is the way God exacts retribution 1 A 
creditor, exacting to the last farthing for the 
most trifling transaction, and if payment is 
delayed, taking life or limb or what is dearer 
in exchanged " I cannot bear to think of it. 
For if my mother is thus visited for a mis¬ 
take, for neglecting a doubtful vocation, my 
pious, sweet mother, what hope is there for 
me, who scarcely pass a day without having 
to repent of saying some sharp word to those 
boys (who certainly are often very provok¬ 
ing), or doing what I ought not, or omitting 
some religious duty, or at least without 
envying some one who is richer, or inwardly 
murmuring at our lot — even sometimes 
thinking bitter thoughts of our father and 
his discoveries 1 

Our dear father has at last arranged and 
fitted in all his treasures, and is the only 
one, except the children, who seems thor¬ 
oughly pleased at the thought of o'ur emigra¬ 
tion. All day he has been packing and 
unpacking and repacking his machines into 
some especially safe corners of the great 
wagon which Conrad Cotta has lent us for 
our journey. 

Eva, on the other hand, seems to belong 
to this world as little as the mother. Not 
that she looks depressed or hopeless. Her 
face often perfectly beams with peace; but 
it seems entirely independent of everything 
here, and is neither ruffled by the difficulties 
we encounter nor enhanced when anything 
goes a little better. I must confess it rather 
provokes me, almost as much as the boys do. 
I have serious fears that one day she will leave 
us, like Fritz, and take refuge in a convent. 
And yet I am sure I have not a fault to find 
with her. I suppose that is exactly what 
our grandmother and I feel so provoking. 
Lately, she has abandoned all her Latin 
books for a Germen book entitled “ Theo- 




70 


THE SCHONBERG-COTTA FAMILY. 


logia Teutsch,” or “ Theologia Germanica,” 
which Fritz sent us before he left the Erfurt 
convent on his pilgrimage to Rome. This 
book seems to make Eva very happy; but as 
to me, it appears to me more unintelligible 
than Latin. Although it is quite different 
from all the other religious books I ever 
read, it does not suit me any better. In¬ 
deed, it seems as if 1 never should find the 
kind of religion that would suit me. It all 
seems so sublime and vague, and so far out 
of my reach;—only fit for people who have 
time to climb the heights; whilst my path 
seems to lie in the valleys, and among the 
streets, and amidst all kinds of little every¬ 
day secular duties and cares, which religion 
is too lofty to notice. 

1 can only hopejthat some day at the end 
of my life God will graciously give me a little 
leisure to be religious and to prepare to 
meet Him, or that Eva’s and Fritz’s prayers 
and merits will avail for me. 

Wittenberg, May, 1510. 

We are beginning to get settled into our 
new home, which is in the street near the 
University buildings. Martin Luther, or 
Brother Martin, has a great name here. 
They say his lectures are more popular 
than any one’s. And he also freqnently 
preaches in the city church. Our grand¬ 
mother is not pleased with the change. 
She calls the town a wretched mud village, 
and wonders what can have induced the 
Electors of Saxony to fix their residence 
and found a University in such a sandy 
desert as this. She supposes it is very 
much like the deserts of Arabia. 

But Christopher and I think differently. 
There are several very fine buildings here, 
beautiful churches, and the University, and 
the castle, and the Augustinian Monastery; 
and we have no doubt that in time the rest 
of the town will grow up to them. I have 
heard our grandmother say that babies 
with features too large for their faces often 
prove the handsomest people when they 
grow up in their features. And so, no 
doubt, it will be with Wittenberg, which is 
at present certainly rather like an infant 
with the eyes and nose of a full-grown 
man. The mud walls and low cottages 
with thatched roofs look strangely out of 
keeping with the new buildings, the 
Electors palace and church at the western 
end, the cfty church in the centre, and the 
Augustinian cloister and University at the 


eastern' extremity, near the Elster gate, 
close to which we live. 

It is true that there are no forests of 
pines, and wild hills, and lovely green val¬ 
leys here, as around Eisenach. But our 
grandmother need not call it a wilderness. 
The white sand-hills on the North are 
broken with little dells and copses; and on 
the South, not two hundred rods from the 
town, across a heath, flows the broad, 
rapid Elbe. 

The great river is a delight to me. It 
leads one’s thoughts back to its quiet 
sources among the mountains, and onwards 
to its home in the great sea. We had no 
great river at Eisenach, which is an advan¬ 
tage on the side of Wittenberg. And then 
the banks are fringed with low oaks and 
willows, which bend affectionately over the 
water, and are delightful to sit amongst on 
summer evenings. 

If I were not a little afraid of the people! 
The father does not like Eva and me to go 
out alone. The students are rather wild. 
This year, however, they have been for¬ 
bidden by the rector to carry arms, which 
is some comfort. But the town’s-people 
also are warlike and turbulent, and drink a 
great deal of beer. There are one hundred 
arid seventy breweries in the place, although 
there are not more than three hundred and 
fifty houses. Few of the inhabitants send 
their children to school, although there are 
five hundred students from all parts of 
Germany at the University. 

Some of the poorer people, wlio come 
from the country around to the markets, 
talk a language I cannot understand. Our 
grandmother says they are Wends, and 
that this town is the last place on the bor¬ 
ders of the civilized world. Beyond it, she 
declares, there are nothing but barbarians 
and Tartars. Indeed, she is not sure 
whether our neighbors themselves are 
Christians. 

St. Boniface, the great apostle of the 
Saxons, did not extend his labors further 
than Saxony; and she says the Teutonic 
knights who conquered Prussia and the 
regions beyond us, were only Christian 
colonists living in the midst of half-heathen 
savages. To me it is rather a gloomy idea, 
to think that between Wittenberg and the 
Turks and Tartars, or even the savages 
in the Indies beyond, which Christopher 
Columbus lias discovered, there are only a 
few half-civilized Wends, living in those 



ELSE ’8 STORY. 


71 


wretched hamlets which dot the sandy 
heaths around the town. 

But the father says it is a glorious idea, 
and that, if lie were only younger, he 
would organize a land expedition, and tra¬ 
verse the country until he reached the 
Spaniards and the Portuguese, who sailed 
to the same point by sea. 

“Only to think,” he says, “that in a 
few weeks, or months at the utmost, we 
might reach Cathay, El Dorado, and even 
Atlantis itself, where the houses are roofed 
and paved with gold, and return laden with 
treasures!” It seems to make him feel even 
his experiments with the retorts and cruci¬ 
bles in which he is always on the point of 
transmuting lead into silver, to be tame 
and slow processes. Since we have been 
here, he has for the time abandoned his 
alchemical experiments, and sits for hours 
with a great map spread before him, calcu¬ 
lating in the most accurate and elaborate 
manner how long it would take to reach the 
new Spanish discoveries by way of Wend- 
ish Prussia. “ For,” he remarks, “if I am 
never able to carry out the scheme myself, 
it may one day immortalize one of my sons, 
and enrich and ennoble the whole of our 
family !” 

Our journey from Eisenach was one con¬ 
tinual fete to the children. For my mother 
and the baby—now two years old—we 
made a couch in the wagon, of the family 
bedding. My grandmother sat erect in a 
nook among the furniture. Little Thekla 
was enthroned like a queen on a pile of 
pillows, where she sat hugging her own 
especial treasures,—her broken doll, the 
wooden horse Christopher made for her, a 
precious store of cones and pebbles from 
the forest, and a very shaggy, disreputable 
foundling dog which she has adopted, and 
can by no means be persuaded to part with. 
She calls the dog Nix, and is sure that he 
is always asking her with his wistful eyes 
to teach him to speak, and give him a soul. 
With these, her household gods, preserved 
to her, she showed little feeling at parting 
from the rest of our Eisenach world. 

The father was equally absorbed with 
his treasures, his folios, and models, and 
instruments, which he jealously guarded. 

Eva had but one inseparable treasure, the 
volume of the “ Theologia Germanica,” 
which she had appropriated. 

The mother’s especial thought was the 
baby. Chriemhild was overwhelmed with 


the parting with Pollux, who was left be¬ 
hind with Cousin Conrad Cotta; and At¬ 
lantis was so wild with delight at the 
thought of the new world and the new life, 
from which she was persuaded all the cares 
of-, the old were to be extracted forever, 
that, had it not been for Christopher and 
me, I must say the general interests of the 
family would have been rather in the back¬ 
ground. 

For the time there was a truce between 
Christopher and me concerning “ Reinecke 
Fuchs,” and our various differences. All 
his faculties—which have been so prolific 
for mischief—seemed suddenly turned into 
useful channels, like the mischievous elves 
of the farm, and hearth, when they are 
capriciously bent on doing some poor 
human being a good turn. He scarcely 
tried my temper once during the whole 
journey. Since we reached Wittenberg, 
however, I cannot say as much. I feel 
anxious about the companions he has found 
among the students, and often, often I long 
that Fritz’s religion had led him to remain 
among us, at least until the boys had 
grown up. 

I had nerved myself beforehand for the 
leave-taking with the old friends and the 
old home, but when the moving actually 
began, there was no time to think of any¬ 
thing but packing in the last things which 
had been nearly forgotten, and arranging 
every one in their places. I had not even 
a moment for a last look at the old house, 
for at the instant we turned the corner, 
Thekla and her treasures nearly came to an 
untimely end by the downfall of one of 
tlie father’s machines; which so discouraged 
Thekla, and excited our grandmother, Nix, 
and the baby, that it required considerable 
soothing to restore every one to equanimity; 
and, in the meantime, the corner of the 
street had been turned, and the dear old 
house was out of sight. I felt a pang,,as if 
I had wronged it, the old home which had 
sheltered us so many years, and been the 
silent witness of so many joys, and cares, 
and sorrows ! 

We had few adventures during the first 
day, except that Thekla’s peace was often 
broken by the difficulties in which Nix’s 
self-confident but not very courageous dis¬ 
position frequently involved him with the 
cats and dogs in the village, and their pro¬ 
prietors. 

The first evening in the forest was 





72 


THE SGHONB ERG-COTTA FAMILY , 


delightful. We encamped in a clearing. 
Sticks were gathered for a fire, round which 
we arranged such bedding and furniture as 
we could unpack, and the children were 
wild with delight at thus combining serious 
household work with play, whilst Chris¬ 
topher foddered and tethered the horses. 

After our meal we began to tell stories, 
but our grandmother positively forbade 
our mentioning the name of any of the 
forest sprites, or of any evil or question¬ 
able creature whatever. 

In the night I could not sleep. All was 
so strange and grand around us, and it did 
seem to me that there were wailings and 
sighings and distant moanings among 
the pines, not quite to be accounted for by 
the wind. I grew rather uneasy, and at 
length lifted my head to see if any one else 
was awake. 

Opposite me sat Eva, her face lifted to 
the stars, her hands clasped, and her lips 
moving as if in prayer. I felt her like a 
guardian angel, and instinctively drew 
nearer to her. 

“ Eva,” I whispered at last, “ do you not 
think there are rather strange and unaccount¬ 
able noises around us ? I wonder if it can 
be true that strange creatures haunt the 
forests.” 

‘ ‘ I think there are always spirits around 
us, Cousin Else,” she replied, “ good and 
evil spirits prowling around us, or minister¬ 
ing to us. I suppose in the solitude we 
feel them nearer, and perhaps they are.” 

I was not at all re-assured. 

“Eva,” I said, “I wish you would say 
some prayers; I feel afraid I may not think 
of the right ones. But are you really ftot 
at all afraid?” 

“ Why should I be?” she said softly; 
“ God is nearer us always than all the 
spirits, good or evil,—nearer and greater 
than all. And he is the Supreme Goodness. 
I like the solitude, Cousin Else, because, 
it seems to lift me above all the creatures to 
the One who is all and in all. And I like 
the wild forests,” she continued, as if to 
herself, “because God is the only owner 
there, and I can feel more unreservedly, 
that we, and the creatures, and all we most 
call our own, are his, and only his. In the 
cities, the houses are called after the names 
of men, and each street and house is divided 
into little plots, of each of which some one 
says, ‘It is mine.’ But here all is visibly 
gnly God’s, undivided, common to all. 


There is but one table, and that is his; the 
creatures live as free i^ensioners on his 
bounty.” 

“ Is it then sin to call anything our own ?’’ 
I asked. 

“My book says it was this selfishness 
that was the cause of Adam’s fall,” she 
replied. “ Some say it was because Adam 
ate the apple that he was lost, or fell; but 
my book says it was ‘ because of his claim¬ 
ing something for his own; and because of 
his saying, I, mine, me, and the like.’ ” 

That is very difficult to understand. I 
said, “Am 1 not to say, my mother, my 
father, my Fritz ? Ought I to love every 
one the same because all are equally God’s ? 
If property is sin, then why is stealing sin ? 
Eva, this religion is quite above and beyond 
me. It seems to me in this way it would 
be almost as wrong to give thanks for what 
we have, as to covet what we have not, 
because we ought not to think we have 
anything. It perplexes me extremely.” 

I lay down again, resolved not to think 
any more about it. Fritz and I proved once, 
a long time ago, how useless it is for me, at 
least, to attempt to get beyond the Ten 
Commandments. But trying to compre¬ 
hend what Eva said so bewildered me, that 
my thoughts soon wandered beyond my 
control altogether. I heard no more of Eva 
or the winds, but fell into a sound slumber, 
and dreamt that Eva and an angel were 
talking beside me all night in Latin, which 
I felt I ought to understand, but of course 
could not. 

The next day, we had not been long on 
our journey, when, at a narrow part of the 
road, in a deep valley, a company of horse¬ 
men suddenly dashed down from a castle 
which towered on our right, and barred our 
further progress with serried lances. 

“ Do you belong to Erfurt?” asked the 
leader, turning our horses’ heads, and push¬ 
ing Christopher aside with the butt end of 
his gun. 

“ No,” said Christopher, “ to Eisenach.” 

“ Give way, men,” shouted the knight to 
his followers; “ we have no quarrel with 
Eisenach. This is not what we are waiting 
for.” 6 

The cavaliers made a passage for us, but 
a young knight, who seemed to lead them, 
rode on beside us for a time. 

“ Did you pass any merchandise on your 
road ?” he asked of Christopher, using the 



ELSE'S STORY. 


78 


form of address he would have to a peas¬ 
ant. 

“We are not likely to pass anything,” 
replied Christopher, not very courteously, 
“ laden as we are.” 

“ What is your lading ?” asked the knight. 

“ All our worldly goods,” replied Christo¬ 
pher, curtly. 

“ What is your name, friend, and where 
are you bound ?” 

“ Cotta,” answered Christopher. My 
father is the director of the Elector’s print¬ 
ing press at the new University of Witten¬ 
berg.” 

“ Cotta 1” rejoined the knight more 
respectfully, “ a good burgher name;” and 
say thing this he rode back to the wagon, 
and saluting our father, surveyed us all with 
a cool freedom, as if his notice honored us, 
until his eye lighted on Eva, who was sitting 
with her arm round Thekla, soothing the 
frightened child, and helping her to arrange 
some violets Christopher had gathered a few 
minutes before. His voice lowered when 
he saw her, and he said,— 

“This is no burgher maiden, surely? 
May I ask your name, fair Fraulein ?” he 
said, doffing his hat, and addressing Eva, 

She made no reply, but continued arrang¬ 
ing her flowers, without changing feature 
or color, except that her lip curled and 
quivered slightly. 

“The Fraulein is absorbed with her 
bouquet; would that we were nearer our 
Schloss, that I might offer her flowers more 
worthy of her handling.” 

“ Are you addressing me ?” said Eva at 
length, raising her large eyes, and fixing 
them on him with her gravest expression; 
I am no Fraiilein, I am a burgher maiden; 
but if I were a queen, any of Grod’s flowers 
would be fair enough for me. ’And to a 
true knight,” she added, “ a peasant maiden 
is as sacred as a queen.'/ 

No one ever could trifle with that earnest 
expression of Eva’s face. It was his turn 
to be abashed. His effrontery failed him 
altogether, and he murmered, “ I have 
merited, the rebuke. These flowers are too 
fair, at least for me. If you would bestow 
one on me, I would keep it sacredly as a 
gift of my mother’s, or as the relics of a 
saint.” 

“ You can gather them anywhere in the 
forest,” said Eva, but little Thekla filled 
both her little hands with violets, and gave 
rhem to him. 


“ You may have them all if you like,” she 
said; “Christopher can gather us plenty 
more.” 

He took them carefully from the child’s 
hand, and, bowing low, rejoined his men 
who were in front. He then returned, said 
a few words to Christopher, and with his 
troop retired to some distance behind us, 
and followed us till we were close to Erfurt, 
when he spurred on to my father’s side, and 
saying rapidly, “ You will be safe now, and 
need no further convoy,” once more bowed 
respectfully to us, and rejoining his men, we 
soon lost the echo of their horse-hoofs, as 
they galloped back through the forest. 

What did the knight say to you, Christo¬ 
pher?” I asked, when we dismounted at 
Erfurt that evening. 

“ He said that part of the forest was dan¬ 
gerous at present, because of a feud between 
the khights and the burghers, and if we 
would allow him, he would be our escort 
until we came in sight of Erfurt.” 

“ That, at least, was courteous of him,” 
I said. 

Such courtesy as a burgher may expect of 
a knight,” rejoined Christopher, uncom¬ 
promisingly; “ to insult us without provo¬ 
cation, and then, as a favor, exempt us from 
their own illegal oppressions ! But women 
are always fascinated with what men on 
horseback do.” 

“No one is fascinated with anyone,’’ I 
replied. For it always provokes me exceed¬ 
ingly when that boy talks in that way about 
women. And our grandmother interposed, 
—“ Don’t dispute, children; if your grand¬ 
father had not been unfortunate, you would 
have been of the knights’ order yourselves, 
therefore it is not for you to run down the 
nobles.” 

“ I should never have been a knight,” 
persisted Christopher, “or a priest, or a 
robber.” But it was consolatory to my 
grandmother and me to consider how exalt¬ 
ed our position would have been, had it not 
been for certain little unfortunate hindran¬ 
ces. Our grandmother never admitted my 
father into the pedigree. 

At Leipsic we left the children, while our 
grandmother, our mother, Eva, and I went 
on foot to see Aunt Agnes at the convent of 
Nimptschen, whither she had been transfer¬ 
red, some years before, from Eisenach. 

We only saw her through the convent 
grating. But it seemed to me as if the 
voice, and manner, and face were entirely 





74 


TBE SCHONBERG-COTTA FAMILY. 


unchanged since that last interview when 
she terrified me as a child by asking me to 
become a sister, and abandon Fritz. 

Only the voice sounded to me even more 
like a muffled bell used only for funerals, 
especially when she said, in reference to 
Fritz’s entering the cloister, “ Praise to God, 
and the Blessed Virgin, and all the saints. 
At last, then, He has heard my unworthy 
prayers; one at least is saved ! ” 

A cold shudder passed over me at her 
words. Had she then, indeed, all these 
years been praying that our happiness 
should be ruined and our home desolated ? 
And had God heard her ? Was the fatal 
spell, which my mother feared was binding 
us, after all nothing else than Aunt Agnes’s 
terrible prayers ? 

Her face looked as lifeless as ever, in the 
folds of white linen which bound it into a 
regular oval. Her voice was metallic and 
lifeless; the touch of her hand was impas¬ 
sive and cold as marble when we took leave 
of her. My mother wept, and said, “Dear 
Agnes, perhaps we may never meet again 
on earth.” 

“ Perhaps not,” was the reply. 

“ You will not forget us, sister ?” said my 
mother. 

“I never forget you,” was the reply, in 
the same deep, low, firm, irresponsive voice, 
which seemed as if it had never vibrated 
to anything more human than an organ 
playing Gregorian chants. 

And the words echo in my heart to this 
instant, like a knell. 

She never forgets us. 

Nightly in her vigils, daily in church and 
cell, she watches over us, and prays God not 
to let us be too happy. 

And God hears her, and grants her 
prayers, it is too clear he does. Had she 
not been asking him to make Fritz a monk ? 
and i3 not Fritz separated from us forever? 

“ How did you like the convent, Eva ? ” I 
said to her that night when we were alone. 

“ It seemed very still and peaceful,” she 
said. “ I think one could be very happy 
there. There would be so much time for 
prayer. One could perhaps more easily lose 
self there, and become nearer to God.” 

•‘But what did you think of Aunt Agnes?” 

“ I felt drawn to her. I think she has 
suffered.” . 

“ She seems to me dead alike to joy or 
suffering,” I said. 


“But people do not thus die without 
pain, said Eva very gravely. 

Our house at Wittenberg is small. From 
the upper windows we look over the city 
walls, across the heath, to the Elbe, which 
gleams and sparkles between its willows and 
dwarf oaks. Behind the house is a plot of 
neglected ground, which Christopher is 
busy at his leisure hours trenching and 
spading into an herb-garden. We are to 
have a few flowers on the boarders of the 
straight walk which intersects it,—daffodils, 
pansies, roses, and sweet violets, and gilli- 
flowers, and wallflowers. At the end of the 
garden are two apple trees and a pear tree, 
which had shed their blossoms just before 
we arrived, in a carpet of pink and white 
petals. Under the shade of these I carry 
my embroidery frame, when the house work 
is finished, and sometimes little Thekla 
comes and prattles to me, and sometimes 
Eva reads and sings to me. I cannot help 
regretting that lately Eva is so absorbed with 
that “ Theologia Germanica.” I cannot un¬ 
derstand it as well as I do the Latin hymns 
when once she has translated them to me; 
for these speak of Jesus the Saviour, who 
left the heavenly home and sat weary by the 
way seeking for us; or of Mary, his dear 
mother; and although sometimes they tell 
of wrath and judgment, at all events I 
know what it mean*. But this other book 
is all to me one dazzling haze, without sun, 
or moon, or stars, or heaven, or earth, 
or seas, or anything distinct,—but all a blaze 
of indistinguishable glory, which is God; 
the One who is all—a kind of ocean of good¬ 
ness, in which, in some mysterious way, we 
ought to be absorbed. But I am not an 
ocean,or any part of one; and I cannot love 
an ocean, because it is infinite, or unfathom¬ 
able, or all sufficient, or anything else. 

My mother’s thought of God, as watching 
lest we should be too happy and love any 
one more than himself, remembering the 
mistakes and sins of youth, and delaying to 
punish them until just the momentwlienthe 
punishment would be most keenly felt, is 
dreadful enough. But even that is not to 
me so bewildering and dreary as this all-ab¬ 
sorbing Being in Eva’s book. The God my 
mother dreads has indeed eyes of severest 
justice, and a frown of wrath against the 
sinner; but if once one could learn how to 
please him, the eyes might smile, the frown 
might pass. It is a countenance, and a heart 
which would meet ours. But when Eva 







ELBE'S STORY. 


75 


reads her book to me, I seem to look up into 
heaven and see nothing but heaven—light, 
space, infinity, and still on and on, infinity 
and light; a moral light, indeed—perfection, 
purity, goodness; but no eyes I can look 
into, no heart to meet mine—none whom I 
could speak to, or touch, or see. 

This evening we opened our window and 
looked out across the heath to the Elbe. 

The town was quite hushed. The space 
of sky above us over the plain looked so 
large and deep. We seemed to see range 
after range of stars beyond each other in 
the clear air. The only sound was the 
distant, steady rush of the broad river, 
which gleamed here and there in the star¬ 
light. 

Eva was looking up with her calm, bright 
look. “Thine!” she murmured, “all this 
is Thine; and we are Thine, and Thou art 
here! liovv much happier it is to be able 
to look up and feel there is no barrier of 
our own poor ownership between us and 
Him, the possessor of heaven and earth,” 
How much poorer we should be if we were 
lords of this land, like the Elector, and if 
we said, ‘ All this is mine!’ and so saw only 
I and mine in it all, instead of God and 
God’s.” 

“ Yes,” I said, “ if we ended in saying I 
and mine; but I should be very thankful 
if God gave me a little more out of his 
abundance, to use for’our wants. And yet, 
how much better things are with us than 
they were;—the appointment of my father’s 
as director of the Elector’s printing estab¬ 
lishment, instead of a precarious struggle 
for ourselves; and this embroidery of mine! 
It seems to me, Eva, sometimes, we might 
be a happy family yet.” 

“ My book,” she replied thoughtfully, 
“ says we shall never be truly satisfied in 
God, or truly free, unless all things are one 
to us, and One is all, and something and 
nothing are alike. I suppose I am not 
quite truly free, Cousin Else, for I can¬ 
not like this place quite as much as the old 
Eisenach home. 1 ’ 

I began to feel quite impatient, and I 
said.—“Nor can I or any of us ever feel 
any home quite the same again, since Fritz 
is gone. But as to feeling something and 
nothing are alike, I never can, and I will 
never try. One might aswell be dead at once.” 

“Yes,” said Eva gravely; “ I suppose we 
shall never comprehend it quite, or be quite 
satisfied and free, until we die.” 


We talked no more that night; but I 
heard her singing one of her favorite 
hymns:—* 

In the fount of life perennial the parched heart its 
thirst would slake, 

And the soul, in flesh imprisoned, longs her prison- 
walls to break,— 

Exile, seeking, sighing, yearning in her Fatherland 
to wake. 

When with cares oppressed and sorrows, only 
groans her grief can tell, 

Then she contemplates the glory which she lost 
when first she fell: 

Memory of the vanished good the present evil can 
but swell. 

Who can utter what the pleasures and the peace 
unbroken are 

Where arise the pearly mansions, shedding silvery 
light afar— 

Festive seats and golden roofs, which glitter like 
the evening star ? 

Wholly of fair stones most precious are those radiant 
structures made 

With pure gold, like glass transparent, are those 
shining streets inlaid; 

Nothing that defiles can enter, nothing that can 
soil or fade. 

Stormy winter, burning summer, rage within those 
regions never; 

But perpetual bloom of roses, and unfading spring 
for ever; 

Lilies gleam, the crocus glows, and dropping balms 
their scents deliver; 

Honey pure, and greenest pastures,—this the land 
of promise is: 

Liquid odors soft distilling, perfumes breathing ou 
the breeze; 

Fruits immortal cluster always on the leafy, fadeless 
trees. 

There no moon shines chill and changing, there no 
stars with twinkling ray,— 

For the Lamb of that blest city is at once the sun 
and day, 

Night and time are known no longer,—day shall 
never fade away. 

There the saints, like suns, are radiant,—like the 
sun at dawn they glow; 

Crowned victors after conflict, all their joys together 
flow; 

And, secure, they count the battles where they 
fought the prostrate foe. 

Every stain of flesh is cleansed, every strife is left 
behind; 

Spiritual are their bodies,—perfect unity of mind; 

Dwelling in deep peace forever, no offence or grief 
they find. 

Putting off their mortal vesture, in their Source their 
souls they steep,— 

Truth by actual vision learning, on its form their 
gaze they keep,— 

Drinking from the Living Fountain draughts of 
living waters deep. 


*Ad perennis vitae fontem mens sitivit arida, 
Claustra carnis praesto frangi clausa quaei'it animu, 
Giiscit, ambit, electatur, exul frui patria. 
etc. etc., etc. 

The translation only is given above. 








THE SC HO SB ERG-COTTA FAMILY. 


76 


Time, with all its alternations, enters not those 
hosts among,— 

Glorious, wakeful, blest, no shade of chance or 
change o’er them is flung; 

Sickness cannot touch the deathless, nor old age 
the ever young. 

There their being is eternal,—things that cease 
have ceased to be; 

All corruption there has perished,—there they 
flourish strong and free; 

Thus mortality is swallowed up of life eternally. 

* - 

Nought from them is hidden,—knowing Him to 
whom all things are known, 

All the spirit’s deep recesses, sinless, to each other 
shown,— 

Unity of will and purpose, heart and mind for 
ever one. 

Diverse as their varied labors the rewards to each 
that fall; 

But Love, what she loves in others evermore her 
own doth call: 

Thus the several joy of each becomes the common 
joy of all. 

Where the body is,there ever are the eagles gathered; 
For the saints and for the angels one most blessed 
feast is spread,— 

Citizens of either country living on the self-same 
bread. 

Ever filled and ever seeking, what they have they 
still desire; 

Hunger there shall fret them never, nor satiety 
shall tire,— 

Still enjoying whilst aspiring, in their joy they 
still aspire. 

There the new song, new forever, those melodious 
voices sing,— 

Ceaseless streams of fullest music through those 
blessed regions ring; 

Crowned victors ever bringing praises worthy of 
the King. 

Blessed who the King of Heaven in his beauty 
thus behold, 

And, beneath his throne rejoicing, see the universe 
unfold,— 

Sun and moon, and stars and planets, radiant in his 
light unrolled. 

Christ, the Palm of faithful victors! of that city 
make me free; 

When my warfare shall be ended, to its mansions 
lead thou me; 

Grant me, with its happy inmates, sharer of thy 
gifts to be! 

Let thy soldier, still contending, still be with thy 
strength supplies; 

Thou wilt not deny the quiet when the arms are 
laid aside; 

Make me meet with thee forever in that country 
to abide 1 

Passion Week. 

Wittenberg has been very full this week. 
There have been great mystery-plays in the 
City Church; and in the Electoral Church 
(Schloss Kirche) all the relics have been 
solemnly exhibited. Crowds of pilgrims 
have come from all the neighboring-villages, 


Wendish and Saxon. It has been very urD 
pleasant to go about the streets, so much 
beer has been consumed; and the students 
and peasants have had frequent encounters. 
It is certainly a comfort that there are large 
indulgences to be obtained by visiting the 
relics, for the pilgrims seem to need a great 
deal of indulgence. 

The sacred mystery-plays were very mag¬ 
nificent. The Judas was wonderfully hate¬ 
ful,—hunchbacked, and dressed like a rich 
Jewish miser; and the devils were dreadful 
eitough to terrify the children for a year. 
Little Tliekla was dressed in white, witli 
gauze wings, and made a lovely angel—and 
enjoyed it very much. Tiiey wanted Eva 
to represent one of the holy women at the 
cross, but she would not. Indeed she nearly 
wept at the thought, and did not seem to 
like the whole ceremony at all. “It all 
really happened!” she said; “ they really 
crucified Him! And He is risen, and living 
in heaven; and I cannot bear to see it per¬ 
formed like a fable.” 

The second day there was certainly more 
jesting and satire than I liked. Christopher 
said it reminded him of “ Rienecke Fuchs.” 

In the middle of the second day we missed 
Eva, and when in a few hours I came back 
to the house to seek her, I found her kneel¬ 
ing by our bedside, sobbing as if her heart 
would break. I drew her towards me, but 
1 could not discover that anything at all was 
the matter, except that the young knight 
who had stopped us in the forest had bowed 
very respectfully to her, and had shown her 
a few dried violets, which he said he should 
always keep in remembrance of her and her 
words. 

It did not seem to me so unpardonable an 
offence, and I said so. 

“ He had no right to keep anything for 
my sake,” she sobbed. “ No one wil1 ever 
have any right to keep anything for my 
sake; and if Fritz had been here, he would 
never have allowed it.” 

“ Little Eva,” I said, “ what has become 
of your ‘ Theologia Teutsch ?’ Your book 
says you are to take all things meekly, and 
be indifferent, I suppose, alike to admiration 
or reproach.” 

“ Cousin Else,” said Eva very gravely, 
rising and standing erect before me with 
clasped hands, “I have not learned the 
‘ Theologia’ through well yet, but I mean 
I to try. The world seems to me very evil, 
and very sad. And there seems no place in 






ELSE’S STORY. 


77 


t for an orphan girl like me. There is no 
rest except in being a wife or a nun. A wife 
I shall never be, and therefore, dear Else,” 
she continued, kneeling down again, and 
throwing her arms around me, “ I have just 
decided—I will go to the convent where 
Aunt Agnes is, and be a nun.” 

I did not attempt to remonstrate; but the 
next day I told the mother, who said gravely, 
“ She will be happier there, poor child! We 
must let her go.” 

But she became pale as death, her lip 
quivered, and she added,—'“ Yes, God must 
have the choicest of all, It is in vain indeed 
to fight against him.” Then, fearing she 
might have wounded me, she kissed me and 
said,—“Since Fritz left, she has grown so 
very dear; but how can I murmur when my 
loving Else is spared to us ?” 

“Mother,” I said, “ do you think Aunt 
Agnes has been praying /igain for this ?” 

“Probably,” she replied, with a startled 
look. “She did look very earnestly at 
Eva.’ 

“ Then, mother,” I replied. “ I shall write 
to Aunt Agnes at once, to tell her that she 
is not to make any such prayers for you or 
for me. For, as to me, it is entirely useless. 
And if you were to imitate St. Elizabeth, 
and leave us, it would break all our hearts, 
and the family would go to ruin altogether. 

“ Wliat are you thinking of,.Else?” replied 
my mother meekly. “ It is too late indeed 
for me to think of being a saint. I can 
never hope for anything beyond this, that 
God in his great mercy may one day pardon 
me my sins, and receive me as the lowest of 
his creatures, for the sake of his dear Son 
who died upon the cross. What could you 
mean by my imitating St. Elizabeth ?” 

I felt re-assured, and I did not pursue the 
subject, fearing it might suggest what I 
dreaded to my mother. 

Wittenberg, June 14. 

And so Eva and Fritz are gone, the two 
religious ones of the family. They are 
gone into their separate convents, to be 
made saints, and have ielt us all to struggle 
on in the world without them,—with all 
that helped us to be less earthly taken from 
us. It seems to me as if a lovely picture of 
the Holy Mother had been removed from 
the dwelling-room since Eva has gone, and 
instead we had nothing left but family 
portraits, and paintings of common earthly 
things; or as if a window opening towards 


the stars had been covered by a low celing. 
She was always like a little bit of heaven 
among us. 

I miss her in our little room at night. Her 
prayers seemed to hallow it. I miss her 
sweet, holy songs at my embroidery; and 
now I have nothing to turn my thoughts 
from the arrangements for to-morrow, and 
the troubles of yesterday, and the perplex¬ 
ities of to-day. 1 had no idea how I must 
have been leaning on her. She always 
seemed so child-like, and so above my petty 
cares—and in practical things I certainly 
understood much more; and yet, in some 
way, whenever I talked anything over with 
her, it always seemed to take the burden 
away,—to change cares into duties, and 
clear my thoughts wonderfully,—just by 
lightening my heart. It was not that she 
suggested what to do; but she made me feel 
things were working for good, not for harm 
—that God in some way ordered them and 
then the right thoughts seemed to come to 
me naturally. 

Our mother, I am afraid, grieves as much 
as she did for Fritz; but she tries to hide it, 
lest we should feel her ungrateful for the 
love of her children. 

I have a terrible dread sometimes that 
Aunt Agnes will get her prayers answered 
about our precious mother also,—if not in 
one way, in another. She looks so pale and 
spiritless. 

June 20. 

Christopher has just returned from taking 
Eva to the convent. He says she shed many 
tears when he left her; which is a comfort. 
I could not bear to think that something and 
nothing were alike to her yet. He told me 
also one thing, which has made me rather 
anxious. On the journey, Eva begged him 
to take care of our father’s sight, which, she 
said, she thought had been failing a little 
lately. And just before they separated she 
brought him a little jar of distilled eye¬ 
water. which the nuns were skilful in mak¬ 
ing, and sent it to our father with Sister 
Ave’s love. 

Certainly my father has read less lately; 
and now I think of it, he has asked me once 
or twice to find things for him, and to help 
him about his models, in a way he never 
used to do. 

It is strange that Eva, with those deep, 
earnest, quiet eyes, which seemed to look 
about so little, always saw before any of us 
what every one wanted. Darling child ! she 





78 


THE SCIIONBERG-COTTA FAMILY. 


will remember us, then, and our little cares. 
And she will have some eye-water to make, 
which will be much better for her than 
reading all day in that melancholy “ Theo- 
logia Teutscli.” 

But are we to call our Eva, Ave ? She 
gave these lines of the hymn in her own 
writing to Christopher, to bring to me. She 
often used to sing it, and has explained the 
words to me:— 

“Ave, maris, stella 
Dei mater alma 
Atque semper virgo 
Felix coeli porta. 

“ Sumens illud Ave 
Gabrielis ore 
Funda nos in pace 
Mutans nomen Evce .” 

It is not an uncommon name, I know, 
with nuns. 

Well, dearly as I loved the old name, I 
cannot complain of the change. Sister Ave 
will be as dear to me as Cousin Eva, only a 
little bit further off, and nearer heaven. 

Her living so near heaven, while she was 
with us, never seemed to make her further 
off but nearer to us all. 

Now, however, it cannot, of course, be the 
same. 

Our grandmother remains steadfast to the 
baptismal name. 

“Receiving that Ave from the lips of 
Gabriel, the blessed Mother transformed the 
name of our poor mother Eva,” And now 
our child Eva is on her way to become Saint 
Ave,—God’s angel Ave in heaven. 

June 30. 

The young knight we met in the forest 
has called at our house to-day. 

1 could scarcely command my voice at 
first to tell him where our Eva is, because I 
cannot help partly blaming him for her 
leaving us at last. 

“ At Nimptschen 1” he said; “ then she 
was noble, after all. None but maidens of 
noble houses are admitted there.” 

“Yes,” I said, “our mother’s family is 
noble.” 

“ She was too heavenly for this world,” he 
murmured. “ Her face, and something in 
her words and tones, have haunted me like 
a holy vision, or a church hymn, ever since 
I saw her.” 

I could not feel as indignant with the 
young knight as Eva did. And he seemed 
so interested in our father’s models, that we 


could not refuse him permission to come and 
see us again. 

Yes, our Eva was, I suppose, as he says, 
too religious and too heavenly for this 
world. 

Only, as so many of us have, after all, 
to live in the world, unless the world is 
to come to an end altogether, it would be a 
great blessing if God had made a religion 
for us poor, secular people, as well as one 
for the monks and nuns. 


X. 

FRITZ’S STORY. 

Rome, Augustinian Convent. 

Holt as this city necessarily must be, 
consecrated by relics of the Church’s most 
holy dead, consecrated by the presence of 
her living Head, I scarcely think religion is 
as deep in the hearts of these Italians as of 
our poor Germans in the cold north. 

But I may mistake; feeling of all kinds 
manifests itself in such different ways with 
different characters. 

Certainly the churches are thronged on 
all great occasions, and the festas are bril¬ 
liant. But the people seem rather to regard 
them as holidays and dramatic entertain¬ 
ments, than as the solemn and sacred festi¬ 
vals we consider them in Saxony. This 
morning, for instance, I heard two women 
criticising a procession in words such as 
these, as far as the little Italian 1 have picked 
up enabled me to understand them:— 

“Ah, Nina mia, the angels are nothing 
to-day; you should have seen our Lucia last 
year ! Every one said she was heavenly. If 
the priests do not arrange it better, people 
will scarcely care to attend. Besides, the 
music was execrable.” 

“Ah, the nuns of the Cistercian convent 
understand how to manage a ceremony. 
They have ideas. Did you see their Bambino 
last Christmas? Such lace ! and the cradle 
of tortoise-shell fit for an emperor, as it 
should be ! And then their robes for the 
Madonna on her fetes ! Cloth of gold em¬ 
broidered with pearls and brilliants worth a 
treasury 1” 

“Yes,” replied the other, lowering her 
voice, “ I have been told the history of 
those robes. A certain lady who was 
powerful at the late Holy Father’s court, is 





FRITZ'S STORY . 


79 


said to have presented the dress in which 
she appeared on some state occasion to the 
nuns, just as she wore it.” 

“ Did she become a penitent, then ?” 

“ A penitent ? I do not know; such an 
act of penitence would purchase indul¬ 
gences and masses to last at least for some 
time.” 

Brother Martin and I do not so much 
affect these gorgeous processions. These 
Italians, with their glorious skies and the 
rich coloring of their beautiful land, re¬ 
quire more splendor in their religion than 
our German eyes can easily gaze on un¬ 
dazzled. 

It rather perplexed us to see the magnifi¬ 
cent caparisons of the horses of the cardi¬ 
nals; and more especially to behold the 
Holy Father sitting on a fair palfrey, beam¬ 
ing the sacred Host. In Germany, the 
loftiest earthly dignity prostrates itself low 
before that Ineffable Presence, 

But my mind becomes confused. Heaven 
forbid that I should call the Vicar of Christ 
an earthly dignitary 1 Is he not the repre¬ 
sentative and oracle of God on earth ? 

For this reason—uo doubt in painful con¬ 
tradiction to the reverent awe natural to 
every Christian before the Holy Sacrament, 
—the Holy Father submits to sitting en¬ 
throned in the church, and receiving the 
body of our Creator through a golden tube 
presented to him by a kneeling cardinal. 

It must be very difficult for him to sep¬ 
arate between the office and the person. It 
is difficult enough for us. But for the 
human spirit not yet made perfect to re¬ 
ceive these religious honors must be over¬ 
whelming. 

Doubtless, at night, when the Holy 
| Father humbles himself in solitude before 
I God, his self-abasement is as much deeper 
J than that of ordinary Christians as his ex- 
I altation is greater. 

I must confess that it is an inexpressible 
, relief to me to retire to the solitude of my 
I cell at night, and pray to-Him of whom 
; Brother Martin and I spoke in the Black 
j Forest; to whom the homage of the uni¬ 
verse is no burden, because it is not mere 
prostration before an office, but adoration of 
a Person. “ Holy, holy, holy Lord God 
Almighty; heaven and earth are full of thy 
glory.” 

Holiness—to which almightiness is but an 
attribute,—Holy One, who hast loved and 


given thine Holy One for a sinful world, 
miserere nobis. 

Rome, July . 

We have diligently visited all the holy 
relics, and offered prayers at every altar at 
which especial indulgences are procured, 
for ourselves and others. 

Brother Martin once said he could almost 
wish his father and mother (whom he dear¬ 
ly loves) were dead, that he might avail 
himself of the privileges of this holy city to 
deliver their souls from purgatory. 

He says masses whenever he can. But 
the Italian priests are often impatient with 
him because he recites the office so slowly. 
I heard one of them say, contemptuously, 
he had accomplished thirty masses while 
Brother Martin only finished one. And 
more than once they hurry him forward, 
saying, “ Passa ! passa I” 

There is a strange disappointment in 
these ceremonies to me, and, I think, often 
to him. I seem to expect so much more,— 
not more pomp, of that there is abund¬ 
ance, but when the ceremony begins, to 
which all the pomp of music, and proces¬ 
sions of cavaliers, and richly-robed priests, 
and costly shrines, are mere preliminary 
accessaries, it seems often so poor. The 
kernel inside all this gorgeous shell seems 
to the eye of sense like a little poor wither¬ 
ed dust. 

To the eye of sense! Yes, I forget. 
These are the splendors of faith , which 
faith only can uphold. 

To-day we gazed on the Veronica,—the 
holy impression left by our Saviour’s face 
on the cloth St. Veronica presented to him 
to wipe his brow, bowed under the weight 
of the cross. We had looked forward to 
this sight for days, for seven thousand 
years of indulgence from penance are at¬ 
tached to it. 

But when the moment came Brother Mar¬ 
tin and I could see nothing but a black 
board hung with a cloth, before which 
another white cloth was held. In a few 
minutes this was withdrawn, and the great 
moment was over, the glimpse of the 
sacred thing on which hung the fate of 
seven thousand years. For some time 
Brothei' Martin and I did not speak of it. 
I feared there had been some imperfection 
in my .looking, which might affect the seven 
thousand years; but observing his coun¬ 
tenance rather downcast, I told him my 







80 


THE SCEONBERG-COTTA FAMILY , 


difficulty, and I found that he also had 
seen nothing but a white cloth. 

The skulls of St. Peter and St. Paul per¬ 
plexed us still more, because they had so 
much the appearance of being carved in 
wood. But in the crowd we could not 
approach very close; and doubtless Satan 
uses devices to blind the eyes even of the 
faithful. 

One relic excited my amazement much— 
the halter with which Judas hanged him¬ 
self ! It could scarcely be termed a holy 
relic. I wonder who preserved it, when so 
many other precious things are lost. 
Scarcely the apostles; perhaps the scribes, 
out of malice. 

The Romans, I observe, seem to care 
little for what to us is the kernel and mar¬ 
row of these ceremonies—the exhibition of 
the holy relics. They seem more occupied 
in comparing the pomp of one year, or of 
one church, with another. 

We must not, I suppose, measure the 
good things do us by our own thoughts and 
feelings, but simply accept it on the testi¬ 
mony of the Church. 

Otherwise I might be tempted to imagine 
that the relics of pagan Rome do my spirit 
more good than gazing on the sacred ashes 
or bones of martyrs or apostles. When I 
walk over the heaps of shapeless ruin, so 
many feet beneath which lies buried the 
grandeur of the old imperial city; or when 
I wander among the broken arches of the 
gigantic Colosseum, where the martyrs 
fought with wild beasts,—great thoughts 
seem to grow naturally in my mind, and I 
feel how great truth is, and how little em¬ 
pires are. 

1 see an empire solid as this Colosseum 
crumble into ruins as undistinguishable as 
the dust of those streets, before the word of 
that once despised Jew of Tarsus, “in 
bodily presence weak,” who was beheaded 
here. Or, again, in the ancient Pantheon, 
when the music of Christian chants rises 
among the shadowy forms of old van¬ 
quished gods painted on the walls, and the 
light streams down, not from painted 
windows in the walls, but from the glowing 
heavens above, every note of the service 
echoes like a peal of triumph, and fills my 
heart with thankfulness. 

But my happiest hours here are spent in 
the church of my patron, St. Sebastian, 
without the vails, built over the ancient 
catacombs. 


Countless martyrs, they say, rest in peace 
in these ancient sepulchres. They have 
not been opened for centuries, but they are 
believed to wind in subterranean passages 
far beneath the ancient city. In those dark 
depths the ancient Church took refuge from 
persecution; there she laid her martyrs; and 
there, over their tombs, she chanted hymns 
of triumph, and held communion with Him 
for whom they died. In that church I 
spend hours. I have no wish to descend 
into those sacred sepulchres, and pry 
among the graves the resurrection trump 
will open soon enough. 1 like to think of 
the hol} r dead, lying undisturbed and quiet 
there; of their spirits in paradise; of their 
faith triumphant in the city which massa¬ 
cred them. 

No doubt they alsq had their perplexities, 
and wondered why the wicked triumph, 
and sighed to God, “ How long, 0 Lord, 
how long ?’’ 

And yet I cannot help wishing I had lived 
and died among them, and had not been 
born in times when we see Satan appear, not 
in his genuine hideousness, but as an angel 
of light. 

For of the wickedness that prevails in 
this Christian Rome, alas, who can speak ! 
of the shameless sin, the violence, the pride, 
the mockery of sacred things. 

In the Colosseum, in the Pantheon, in 
the Church of St. Sebastian, 1 feel an atom 
—but an atom in a solid, God-governed 
world, where truth is mightiest;—insignfi- 
cant in myself as the little mosses which 
flutter on these ancient stones; but yet a 
little moss on a great rock which cannot be 
shaken—the rock of God’s providence and 
love. In the busy city, I feel tossed hither 
and thither on a sea which seems to rage and 
heave at its own wild will, without aim or 
meaning—a sea of human passion. Among 
the ruins, I commune with the spirits of 
our great and holy dead, who live unto 
God. At the exhibition of the sacred relics, 
my heart is drawn down to the mere 
perishable dust, decorated with the miser¬ 
able pomps of the little men-of the day. 

And then 1 return to the convent and 
reproach myself for censoriousness, and 
unbelief, and pride, and try to remember 
that the benefits of these ceremonies and 
exhibitions are only to be understood by 
faith, and are not to be judged by inward 
feeling, or even by their moral results. 

The Church, the Holy Father, solemnly 





FRITZ'S STORY , 


81 


declare, that pardons and blessings incal¬ 
culable, to ourselves and others, flow from 
so many Paternosters and Aves recited at 
certain altars, or from seeing the Veronica 
or the other relics. I have performed the 
acts, and I must at my peril believe in the 
efficacy. 

But Brother Martin and I are often sorely 
discouraged at the wickedness we see and 
hear around us. A few days since he was 
at a feast with several prelates and great 
men of the Church, and the fashion among 
them seemed to be to jest at all that is most 
sacred. Some avowed their disbelief in one 
portion of the faith, and some in others; 
but all in a light and laughing way, as if it 
mattered little to any of them. One present 
related how they sometimes substituted the 
words panis es, et panis manebis in the 
mass, instead of the words of consecration, 
and then amused themselves with watching 
the people adore what was, after all, no 
consecrated Host, but a mere piece of 
bread. 

The Romans themselves we have heard 
declare, that if there be a hell, Rome is 
built over it. They have a couplet,— 

“ Vivere qui sancte vultis, discedite Roma : 

Omnia hie esse licent, non licet esse probum. ”* 

0 Rome ! in sacredness as Jerusalem, in 
wickedness as Babylon, how bitter is the 
conflict that breaks forth in the heart 
at seeing holy places and holy character 
thus disjoined! How overwhelming .the 
doubts that rush back on the spirit again 
and again, as to the very existence of 
holiness or truth in the universe, when we 
behold the deeds of Satan prevailing in the 
very metropolis of the kingdom of God ! 

Rome, August. 

Mechanically, we continue to go through 
every detail of the prescribed round of 
devotions, believing against experience, and 
hoping against hope. 

To-day Brother Martin went to accomplish 
the ascent of the Santa Scala—the Holy 
Staircase—which once, they say, formed 
part of Pilate’s house, I had crept up the 
sacred steps before, and stood watching him 
as, on his knees, he slowly mounted step 
after step of the hard stone, worn into 
hollows by the knees of penitents and 
pilgrims. An indulgence for a thousand 
years—indulgence from penance—is at- 


* [“Ye who would live holily, depart from Rome : 
all things are allowed here, except to be upright.”] 


taclied to this act of devotion. Patiently 
he crept half way up the staircase, when, to 
my amazement, he suddenly stood erect, 
lifted his face heavenward, and, in another 
moment, turned and walked slowly down 
again. 

He seemed absorbed in thought when he 
rejoined me; and it was not until some time 
afterwards that he told me the meaning of 
this sudden abandonment of his purpose. 

He stated that, as he was toiling up, a 
voice, as if from heaven, seemed to whisper 
to him the old, well-known words, which 
had been his battle-cry in so many a 
victorious combat.— “ The just shall live 
by faith” 

He seemed awakened, as if from a night¬ 
mare, and restored to himself. He dared 
not creep up another step; but, rising 
from his knees, he stood upright, like a 
man suddenly loosed from bonds and fetters, 
and, with the firm step of a freeman, he 
descended the Staircase and walked from 
the place. 

August, 1511. 

To-night there has been an assassination. 
A corpse was found near our convent gates, 
pierced with many wounds. But no one 
seems to think much of it. Such things are 
constantly occurring, they say; and the 
only interest seems to be as to the nature of 
the quarrel which led to it. 

“ A prelate is mixed up with it,” the 
monks whisper, “one of the late Pope’s 
family. It will not be investigated.” 

But these crimes of passion seem to me 
comprehensible and excusable, compared 
with the spirit of levity and mockery which 
pervades all classes. In such acts of re¬ 
venge you see human nature in ruins; yet 
in the ruins you can trace something of the 
ancient dignity. But in this jesting, scorn¬ 
ful spirit, which mocks at sacredness in the 
service of God, at virtue in women, and at 
truth and honor in men, all traces of God’s 
image seem crushed and trodden into 
shapeless, incoherent dust. 

For such thoughts I often take refuge in 
the Campagna, and feel a refreshment in 
its desolate spaces, its solitary wastes, its 
traces of material ruin. 

The ruins of empires and of imperial 
edifices do not depress me. The im¬ 
mortality of the race and of the soul rises 
grandly "in contrast. In the Campagna we 
see the ruins of imperial Rome; but in 
Rome we see the ruin of our race and 





82 THE SC110NBERG-COTTA FAMILY, 


nature. And what shall console us for 
that, when the presence of all that Christ¬ 
ians most venerate is powerless to arrest 
it? 

Were it not for some memories of a 
home at Eisenach, on which I dare not 
dwell too much, it seems at times as if the 
very thought of purity and truth would 
fade from my heart. 

Rome, August. 

Brother Martin, during the intervals of 
the business of his Order, which is slowly 
winding its way among the intricacies of 
the Roman courts, is turning his attention 
to the study of Hebrew, under the Rabbi 
Elias Levita. 

I study also with the Rabbi, and have had 
the great benefit, moreover, of hearing lec¬ 
tures from the Byzantine Greek professor, 
Argyropylos. 

Two altogether new worlds seem to open 
to me through these men,—one in the far 
distances of time, and the other of space. 

The Rabbi, one of the race which is a by¬ 
word and a scorn among us from boyhood, 
to my surprise seems to glory in his nation 
and his pedigree, with a pride which looks 
down on the antiquity of our noblest line¬ 
ages as mushrooms of a day. I had no 
conception that underneath the misery and 
obsequious demeanor of the Jews such 
lofty feelings existed. And yet, what won¬ 
der is it ? Before Bome was built, Jerusa¬ 
lem was a sacred and royal city; and now 
that the empire and the people of Rome 
have passed for centuries, this nation, fallen 
before their prime, still exists to witness 
their fall. 

I went once to the door of their syna¬ 
gogue, in the Ghetto. There were no 
shrines in it, no altars, no visible symbols 
of sacred things, except the roll of the Law, 
which was reverently taken out of a secret 
treasury and read aloud. Yet there seemed 
something sublime in this symbolizing of 
the presence of God only by a voice reading 
the words which, ages ago, lie spoke to their 
prophets in the Holy Land. 

“ Why have you no altar? ” I asked once 
of one of the Rabbis. 

“ Our altar can only be raised where our 
temple is built,” was the reply. “ Our tem¬ 
ple can only rise in the city and on the hill 
of our God. But,” he continued, in a low, 
bitter tone, “ when our altar and temple 
are restored, it will not be to offer incense 
to the painted image of a Hebrew maiden.” 


I have thought of the words often since. 
But were they not blasphemy ? I must not 
dare recall them. 

But those Greeks ! they are Christians, 
and yet not of our communion. As Argy¬ 
ropylos speaks, I understand for the first 
time that a Church exists in the East, as 
ancient as the Church of western Europe, 
and as extensive, which acknowledges the 
Holy Trinity and the Creeds, but owns no 
allegiance to the Holy Father the Pope. 

The world is much larger and older than 
Else or I thought at Eisenach. May not 
God’s kingdom be much larger than some 
think at Rome ? 

In the presence of monuments which 
date back to da5 r s before Christianity, and 
of men who speak the language of Moses, 
and, with slight variations, the language of 
Homer, our Germany seems in its infancy 
indeed. Would to God it were in its in¬ 
fancy, and that a glorious youth and prime 
may succeed, when these old, decrepit na¬ 
tions are worn out and gone 1 

Yet heaven forbid that I should call Rome 
decrepit—Rome, on whose brow rests, not 
the perishable crown of earthly dominion, 
but the tiara of the kingdom of God. 

September. 

The mission which brought Brother Mar¬ 
tin hither is nearly accomplished. We shall 
soon—we may at a day’s notice—leave 
Rome and return to Germany. 

A fid what have we gained by our pil¬ 
grimage ? 

A store of indulgences beyond calcula¬ 
tion. And knowledge; eyes opened to see 
good and evil. Ennobling knowledge I 
glimpses into rich worlds of human life and 
thought, which humble the heart in expand¬ 
ing the mind. Bitter knowledge ! illusions 
dispelled, aspirations crushed. We have 
learned that the heart of Christendom is a 
moral plague-spot; that spiritual privileges 
and moral goodness have no kind of con¬ 
nection, because where the former are at 
the highest perfection, the latter is at the 
lowest point of degradation. 

We have learned that on earth there is no 
place to which the heart can turn as a sanc¬ 
tuary, if by a sanctuary we mean not 
merely a refuge from the punishment of 
sin, but a place in which to grow holy. 

In one sense, Rome may, indeed, be 
called the sanctuary of the world. It seems 
as if half the criminals in the world had 
found a refuge here. 





PRITZ’S story. 


83 


When I think of Rome in future as a city 
of the living, I shall think of assassination, 
treachery, avarice, a spirit of universal 
mockery, which seems only the foam over 
an abyss of universal despair; mockery of 
all virtue, based on disbelief in all truth. 

It is only as a city of the dead that my 
heart will revert to Rome as a holy place. 
She has, indeed, built, and built beautifully, 
the sepulchres of the prophets. 

Those hidden catacombs, where the holy 
dead rest, far under the streets of the city, 
—too far for traffickers in sacred bones to 
disturb them,—among these the imagination 
can rest, like these beautiful ones, in peace. 

The spiritual life of Rome seems to be 
among her dead. Among the living all 
seems spiritual corruption and death. 

May God and the saints have mercy on 
me if I say what is sinful. Does not the 
scum necessarily rise to the surface? Do 
not acts of violence and words of mockery 
necessarily make more noise in the world 
than prayers ? How do I know how many 
humble hearts there are in those countless 
convents there, that secretly offer accept¬ 
able incense to God, and keep the perpetual 
lamp of devotion burning in the sight of 
God? 

How do I know what deeper and better 
thoughts lie hidden under that veil of levity? 
Only I often feel that if God had not made 
me a believer tnrougli his word, by the 
voice of Brother Martin in the Black Forest, 
Rome might too easily have made me an 
infidel. And it is certainly true, that to be 
a Christian at Rome as well as elsewhere, 
more than elsewhere one must breast the 
tide, and must walk by taith, and not by 
sight. 

But we have performed the pilgrimage. 
We have conscientiously visited all the 
shrines; we have recited as many as possi¬ 
ble of the privileged acts of devotion, Paters 
and Aves, at the privileged shrines. 

Great benefits must result to us from 
these things. 

But benefits of what kind ? Moral ? How 
can that be? When shall I efface from my 
memory the polluting words and works I 
have seen and heard at Rome ? * Spiritual ? 
Scarcely; if by spiritual we are to under¬ 
stand a devout mind, joy in God, and near- 
ness to him. When, since that night in the 
Black Forest, have I found prayer so diffi¬ 
cult, doubts so overwhelming the thought 
of God and heaven so dim, as at Rome ? 


The benefits, then, that we have received, 
must be ecclesiastical,—those that the church 
promises and dispenses. And what are 
these ecclesiastical benefits ? Pardon ? But 
is it not written that God gives this freely 
to those who believe on his Son ? Peace ? 
But is not that the legacy of the Saviour to 
all who love him ? 

What then ? Indulgences. Indulgences 
from what ? From the temporal conse¬ 
quences of sin ? Too obviously not these. 
Do the ecclesiastical indulgences save men 
from disease, and sorrow, and death ? Is it, 
then, from the eternal consequences of sin ? 
Did not the Lamb of God, dying for us on 
the cross, bear our sins there, and blot them 
out ? What then remains, which the indul¬ 
gences can deliver from ? Penance and 
purgatory What then are penance and 
purgatory ? Has penance in itself no 
curative effect, that we can be healed of*our 
sins by escaping as well as by performing it? 
Have purgatorial fires no purifying power, 
that we can be purified as much by repeat¬ 
ing a few words of devotion at certain altars 
as by centuries of agony in the flames. 

All these questions rise before me from 
time to time, and I find no reply. If I men¬ 
tion them to my confessor, he says:— 

“ These are temptations of the devil. You 
must not listen to them. They are vain and 
presumptuous questions. There are no 
keys on earth to open these doors.” 

Are there any keys on earth to lock them 
again, when once they have been opened? 

“You Germans,” others of the Italian 
priests say, “take everything with such 
desperate seriousness. It is probably owing 
to your long winters and the heaviness of 
your northern climate, which must, no 
doubt, be very depressing to the spirits,” 

Holy Mary! and these Italians, if life is 
so light a matter to them, will not they also 
have one day to take death “ with desperate 
seriousness,” and judgment and eternity, 
although there will be no long winters, I 
suppose, and no north and south, to depress 
the spirits in that other world? 

We are going back to Germany at last. 
Strangely has the world enlarged to me 
since we came here. We are accredited 
pilgrims; we have performed every pre¬ 
scribed duty, and availed ourselves of every 
proffered privilege. And yet it is not be¬ 
cause of the regret of quitting the Holy 
City that our hearts are full of the gravest 
melancholy as we turn away from Rome. 







84 


THE SCHOtfBERG-COTTA FAMILY. 


When I compare the recollections of this 
Rome with those of a home at Eisenach, I 
am tempted in my heart to feel as if Ger¬ 
many, and not Rome, were the Holy Place, 
and our pilgrimage were beginning instead 
of ending, as we turn our faces northward. 


EVA’S STORY. 

Cistercian Convent, Nimptschen, 1511. 

Life cannot at the utmost last very long, 
although at seventeen we may be tempted to 
think the way between us and heaven inter¬ 
minable. 

For the convent is certainly not heaven; I 
never expected it would be. It is not nearly 
so much like heaven, I think, as Aunt 
Cotta’s home; because love seems to me to 
be the essential joy of heaven, and there is 
more love in that home than here. 

I am not at all disappointed. I did not 
expect a haven of rest, but only a sphere 
where I might serve God better, and, at all 
events, not be a burden on dear Aunt Cotta. 
For I feel sure Uncle Cotta will become 
blind; and they have so much difficulty to 
struggle on as it is. 

And the world is full of dangers for a 
young orphan girl like me; and I am afraid 
they might want me to marry some one, 
which I never could. 

I have no doubt God will give me some 
work to do for him here, and that is all the 
happiness I look for. Not that I think there 
are not other kinds of happiness in the 
world which are not wrong; but they are 
not for me. 

I shall never think it was wrong to love 
them all at Eisenach as much as I did, and 
do, whatever the confessor may say. I shall 
be better all my life, and all the life beyond, 
I believe, for the love God gave them for 
me, and me for them, and for having known 
Cousin Fritz. I wish very much he would 
write to me; and sometimes I think I will 
write to him. I feel sure it would do 11 s 
both good. He always said it did him good 
to talk and read the dear old Latin hymns 
with me; and I know they never seemed 
more real and true than when I sang them 
to him. But the father confessor says it 
would be exceedingly perilous for our souls 
to hold such a correspondence; and he asked 
me if I did not think more of my cousin 
than of the hymns when I sang them to 
him, which, he says, would have been a 


great sin. I am sure I cannot tell exactly 
how the thoughts were balanced, or from 
what source each drop of pleasure flowed. 
It was all blended together. It was joy to 
sing the hymns, and it was joy for Fritz to 
like to hear them; and where one joy over¬ 
flowed into the other I cannot tell. I be¬ 
lieve God gave me both; and I do not see 
that I need care to divide one from the 
other. Who cares, when the Elbe is flow¬ 
ing past its willows and oaks at Wittenberg, 
which part of its waters was dissolved by 
the sun from the pure snows on the moun¬ 
tains, and which came trickling from some 
little humble spring on the sandy plains ? 
Both springs and snows came originally 
from the clouds above; and both, as they 
flow blended on together, make the grass 
spring and the leaf-buds swell, and all the 
world rejoice. 

The heart with which we love each other 
and with which we love God, is it not the 
same ? only God is all good, and we are all 
his, therefore we should love him best. I 
think I do, or I should be more desolate 
here than I am, away from all but him. 

That is what I understand by my “ The- 
ologia Germanica,’’which Else does not like. 
I begin with my father’s legacy—** God so 
loved the world that he gave his Son; ” and 
then I think of the crucifix, and of the love 
of Him who died for us; and, in the light 
of these, I love to read in my book of Him 
who is the Supreme Goodness, whose will 
is our rest, and who is himself the joy of all 
our joys, and our joy when we have no 
other joy. The things I do not comprehend 
in the book, 1 leave, like so many other 
things. I am but a poor girl of seventeen, 
and how can I expect to understand every¬ 
thing ? Only I never let the things I do not 
understand perplex me about those I do. 

Therefore, when my confessor, told me 
to examine my heart, and see if there were 
not wrong and idolatrous thoughts mixed up 
with my love for them all at Eisenach, 1 
said at once, looking up at him— 

“ Yes, father. I did not love them half 
enough, for all their love to me.” 

I think he must have been satisfied; for 
although he looked perplexed, he did not 
ask me any more questions. 

I feel very sorry for many of the nuns, 
especially for the old nuns. They seem to 
me like children, and yet not child-like. 
The merest trifles appear to excite or trouble 
them, They speak of the convent as if it 





BV.A ’S SWRY- 


85 


were the world, and of the World as if it 
were hell. It is a childhood with no hope, 
no youth and womanhood before it. It re¬ 
minds me of the stunted oaks we passed on 
Diiben Heath, between Wittenberg and 
Leipsic, which will never be full-grown, and 
yet are not saplings. 

Then there is one, Sister Beatrice, whom 
the nuns seem to think very inferior to 
themselves, because they say she was forced 
into the convent by her relatives, to prevent 
her marrying some one they did not like, 
and could never be induced to take the vows 
until her lover died,—which, they say, is 
hardly worthy of the name of a vocation at 
all. 

She does not seem to think so either, but 
moves about in a subdued, broken-spirited 
way, as if she felt herself a creature belong¬ 
ing neither to the Church nor to the world. 

The other evening she had been on an 
errand for the prioress through the snow, 
and returned blue with cold. She had 
made some mistake in the message, and was 
ordered at once, with contemptuous words, 
to her cell, to finish a penance by reciting 
certain prayers. 

I could not help following her. When I 
found her she was sitting on her pallet shiv¬ 
ering, with the prayer-book before her. I 
crept into the cell, and, sitting down beside 
her, began to chafe her poor icy hands. 

At first she tried to withdraw them, mur¬ 
muring that she had a penance to perform; 
and then her eyes wandered from the book 
to mine. She gazed wonderingly at me for 
some moments, and then she burst into 
tears, and said,— 

“Oh, do not do that 1 It makes me think 
of the nursery at home. And my mother is 
dead; all are dead, and I cannot die.” 

She let me put my arms round her, how¬ 
ever; and, in faint, broken words, the whole 
history came out. 

‘T am not here from choice,” she said. 
“I should never have been here if my 
mother had not died; and I should never 
have taken the vows if he had not died, 
whatever they had done to me; for we were 
betrothed, and we had vowed before God 
we would be true to each other till death. 
And why is not one vow as good as another? 
When they told me he was dead, I took the 
vows—or, at least, I let them put the veil on 
me, and said the words as I was told, after 
the priest; for I did not care what I did. 
And sq I am a nun, I have np wish now to 


be anything-else. But it will do me no good 
to be a nun, for I loved Eberhard first, and 
I loved him best; and now that he is dead, 
I love' no one, and have no hope in heaven 
or earth. I try, indeed, not to think of 
him, because they say that is sin; but I can¬ 
not think of happiness without him, if I try 
for ever.” 

I. said, “ I do not think it is wrong for you 
to think of him.” 

Her face brightened for an instant, and 
then she shook her head, and said,— 

“Ah, you are a child; you are an angel. 

You do not know.” But then she began 
to weep again, but more quietly. “ I wish 
you had seen him; then you would under¬ 
stand better. It was not wrong for me to 
love him once; and he was so different from 
every one else—so true and gentle and so 
brave.” 

I listened while she continued to speak of 
him; and at last, looking wistfully at me, 
she said, in a low, timid voice, “I cannot 
help trusting you.” And she drew from in¬ 
side a fold of her robe a little piece of yel¬ 
low paper, with a few words written on it, 
in pale, faded ink, and a lock of brown 
hair.” 

“Do you think it is very wrong?” she 
asked. “ I have never told the confessor, 
because I am not quite sure if it is a sin to 
keep it; and I am quite sure the sisters 
would take it from me if they knew. Do 
you think it is wrong? ” 

The words were very simple—expressions 
of unchangeable affection, and a prayer that 
God would bless her and keep them for each 
other till better times. 

I could not speak, I felt so sorry; and she 
murmured, nervously taking her poor treas¬ 
ures from my hands, “You do not think it 
right. But you will not tell? Perhaps one 
day I shall be better, and be able to give 
them up ! but not yet. 1 have nothing 
else.” 

Then I tried to tell her that she had some¬ 
thing else;—that God loved her and had 
pity on her, and that perhaps he was only 
answering the prayer of her betrothed, and 
keeping them in his blessed keeping until 
they should meet in better times. At length 
she seemed to take comfort; and I knelt 
down with her, and we said together the 
prayers she had been commanded to recite. 

When I rose, she said thoughtfully, 
“You seem to pray as if some one in heaven 
really listened and cared.” 




86 


THE SCIIONBERG-00TTA FAMILY. 


“Yes,” I said; “God does listen and 
care.” 

“Even to me?” she asked; “ even for 
me? Will he not despise me, like the holy 
sisterhood ? ” 

“ He scorneth no one; and they say the 
lowest are nearest Him, the Highest.” 

“ I can certainly never he anything but 
the lowest,” she said. “It is fit no one here 
should think much of me, for I have only 
given the refuse of my life to God. And 
besides, I have never much power to think; 
and the little I had seems gone since Eber- 
hard died. I had only a little power to love; 
and I thought that was dead. But since you 
came, I begin to think I might yet love 
a little.” 

As I left the cell she called me back. 

“What shall I do when my thoughts 
wander, as they always do in the long pray¬ 
ers? ” she asked. 

“ Make shorter prayers, I think, oftener,” 
I said. “ I think that would please God as 
much.” 

. August , 1511. 

Thc-months pass on very much the same 
here; but I do not find them monotonous. 
] am permitted by the prioress to wait on 
the sick, and also often to teach the younger 
novices. This little world grows larger to 
me every week. It is a world of human 
hearts,—and what a world there is in every 
heart! 

For instance, Aunt Agnes ! I begin now 
to know her. All the sisterhood look up to 
her as almost a saint already. But I do not 
believe she thinks so herself. For many 
months after I entered the cloister she 
scarcely seemed to notice me; but last week 
she brought herself into a low fever by the 
additional fasts and severities she has been 
imposing on herself lately. 

It was my night to watch in the infirmary 
when she became ill. 

At first she seemed to shrink from receiv¬ 
ing anything at my hands. 

“ Can they not send any one else ? ” she 
asked, sternly. 

“It Is appointed to me,” I said, “ in the 
order of the sisterhood.” 

She bowed her head, and made no further 
opposition to my nursing her. And it was 
very sweet to me, because in spite of all the 
settled, grave impressiveness of her coun¬ 
tenance, I could not help seeing something 
there which recalled dear Aunt Cotta. 

She spoke to me very little; but I felt her 


large deep eyes following me as I stirred 
little concoctions from herbs on the fire, or 
crept softly about the room. Towards morn¬ 
ing she said, “ Child, you are tired—come 
and lie down;” and she pointed to a little 
bed beside her own. 

Peremptory as were the words, there was 
a tone in them different from the usual 
metallic firmness in her voice—which froze 
Else’s heart—a tremulousness which was al¬ 
most tender. I could not resist the com¬ 
mand, especially as she said she felt much 
better; and in a few minutes, bad nurse 
that I was, I fell asleep. 

How long I slept I know not, but I was 
awakened by a slight movement in the room, 
and looking up, I saw Aunt Agnes’s bed 
empty. In my first moments of bewildered 
terror I thought of arousing the sisterliQod, 
w hen I noticed that the door of the infirm¬ 
ary which opened on the gallery of the 
chapel was slightly ajar. Softly I stole 
towards it, and there, in the front of the 
gallery, wrapped in a sheet, knelt Aunt 
Agnes, looking more than ever like the pic¬ 
ture of death which she always recalled to 
Else. Her lips, which were as bloodless as 
her face, moved with passionate rapidity; 
her thin hands feebly counted the black 
beads of her rosary; and her eyes were 
fixed on a picture of the Mater ■ olorosa 
with the seven swords in her heart, over one 
of the altars. There was no impassiveness 
in the poor sharp features and trembling 
lips then. Her whole soul seemed going 
forth in an agonized appeal to that pierced 
heart; and I heard her murmur, “ In vain ! 
Holy Virgin, plead for me ! it has been all 
in vain. The flesh is no more dead in me 
than the first day. That child’s face and 
voice stir my heart more than all thy sor¬ 
rows. This feeble tie of nature has more 
power in me than all the relationships of the 
heavenly city. It has been in vain,—all, all 
in vain. I cannot quench the fires of earth 
in my heart.” s 

I scarcely ventured to interrupt her, but 
as she bowed her head on her hands, and 
fell almost prostrate on the floor of the 
chapel, while her whole frame heaved with 
repressed sobs, I went forward and gently 
lifted her, saying “ Sister Agnes, I am re¬ 
sponsible for the sick to-night. You must 
come back.” 

She did not resist, A shudder passed 
through her; then the old stony look came 
back to her face, more rigid than ever, and 



ELSmS STORY. 87 


she suffered me to wrap her up in the bed, 
and give her a warm drink. 

I do not know whether she suspects that 
I heard her. She is more reserved with me 
than ever; but to me those resolute, fixed 
features, and that hard, firm voice, will 
never more be what they were before. 

No wonder that the admiration of the sis¬ 
terhood has no power to elate Aunt Agnes, 
and that their wish to elect her sub-prioress 
had no seduction for her. She is striving 
in her inmost soul after an ideal, which, 
could she reach it, what would she be ? 

As regards all human feeling and earthly 
life, dead ! 

And just as she hoped this was attained, 
a voice—a poor, friendly child’s voice—falls 
on her ear, and she finds that what she 
deemed deatli was only a dream in an un¬ 
disturbed slumber, and that the whole work 
has to begin again. It is a fearful combat, 
this concentrating all the powers of life on 
producing death in life. 

Can this be what God means ? 

Thank God, at least, that my vocation is 
lower. The humbling work in the infirm¬ 
ary, and the trials of temper in the school 
of the novices, seem to teach me more, and 
to make me feel that I am nothing and have 
notiiing in myself, more than all my efforts 
to feel nothing. 

My “Theologia” says, indeed, that true 
self-abnegation is freedom; and freedom 
cannot be attained until we are above the 
fear of punishment or the hope of reward. 
Else cannot bear this; and when I spoke of 
it the other day to poor Sister Beatrice, she 
said it bewildered her poor brain altogether 
to think of it. But I do not take it in that 
sense. I think it must mean that love is its 
own reward, and grieving Him we love, who 
. has so loved us, our worst punishment; and 
that seems to me quite true. 


XI. 

ELSE’S STORY. 

Wittenberg, June , 1512. 

Our Eva seems happy at the convent. 
She has taken the vows, and is now finally 
Sister Ave. She has also sent us some eye¬ 
water for the father. But in spite of all we 
can do his sight seems failing. 

In some way or other I think my father’s 


loss of sight has brought blessing to the 
family. 

Our grandmother, who is very feeble 
now, and seldom leaves her chair by the 
stove, has become much more tolerant of 
his schemes since there is no chance of their 
being carried out, and listens with remark¬ 
able patience to his statements of the won¬ 
ders he would have achieved had his sight 
only been continued a few years. 

Nor does the father himself seem as much 
dejected as one would have expected. 

When I was comforting him to-day by 
saying how much less anxious our mother 
looks, lie replied,— 

“ Yes, my child, the praeter pluperfect 
subjunctive is a more comfortable tense to 
live in than the future subjunctive, for any 
length of time.” 

I looked perplexed, and he explained,— 

“ It is easier, when once one has made up 
one’s mind to it, to say, ‘ Had I had this I 
might have done that,’ than, ‘ If I can have 
this I shall do that,’—at least it is easier to 
the anxious and excitable feminine mind.” 

“ But to you, father ? ” 

“ To me it is a consolation at last to be 
appreciated. Even your grandmother un¬ 
derstands at length how great the results 
would have been if I could only have had 
eyesight to perfect that last invention for 
using steam to draw water.” 

Our grandmother must certainly have 
put great restraint on her usually frank ex¬ 
pression of opinion, if she has led our 
father to believe she had any confidence in 
that last scheme; for, I must confess, that 
of all our father’s inventions and discov¬ 
eries, the whole family consider this idea 
about the steam the wildest and most im¬ 
practicable of all. The secret of perpetual 
motion might, no doubt, be discovered, and 
a clock be constructed which would never 
need winding up,—I see no great difficulty 
in that. It might be quite possible to trans¬ 
mute lead into gold, or iron into silver, if 
one could find exactly the right proportions 
of heat. My father has explained all that 
to me quite clearly. The elixir which would 
prolong life indefinitely seems to me a little 
more difficult; but this notion of pumping 
up water by means of the steam which 
issues from boiling water and disperses in 
an instant, we all agree in thinking quite 
visionary, and out of the question; so that 
it is, perhaps, as well our poor father should 
not have thrown away any more expense or 







88 


THE SQHONBERG-COTTA FAMILY, 


time on it. Besides, we had already had 
two or three explosions from his experi¬ 
ments; and some of the neighbors were be¬ 
ginning to say very unpleasant things about 
the black art, and witchcraft; so that on the 
whole, no doubt, it is all for the best. 

I would not, however, for the world, have 
hinted this to him; therefore I only replied, 
evasively,— 

“ Our grandmother has indeed been 
much gentler and more placid lately.” 

“ It is not only that,” he rejoined; she 
has an intelligence far superior to that of 
most women,—she comprehends. And 
then,” he continued, “I am not without 
hopes that that young nobleman, Ulrich 
von Gersdorf, who comes here so frequently 
and asks about Eva, may one day carry out 
my schemes. He and Chriemhild begin to 
enter into the idea quite intelligently. Be¬ 
sides, there is Master Reichenbach, the rich 
merchant to whom your Aunt Cotta intro¬ 
duced us; he has money enough to carry 
things out in the best style. He certainly 
does not promise much, but he is an intelli- 

g ent listener, and that is a great step. 

rottfried Reichenbach is an enlightened 
man for a merchant, although he is, perhaps, 
rather slow in comprehension, and a little 
over-cautious.” 

“He is not over-cautious in his alms, 
father,” I said; “at least Dr. Martin Luther 
says so.” 

“ Perhaps not,” he said. On the whole, 
certainly, the citizens of Wittenberg are 
very superior to those of Eisenach, who 
were incredulous and dull to the last degree. 
It will be a great thing if Reichenbach and 
Yon Gersdorf take up this invention. 
Reichenbach can introduce it at once among 
the patrician families of the great cities with 
whom he is connected, and Yon Gersdorf 
would promote it among his kindred knights. 
It would not, indeed, be such an advantage 
to our family as if Pollux and Christopher, 
or our poor Fritz, had carried it out. But 
never mind, Else, my child, we are children 
of Adam before we are Cottas. We must 
think not only of the family, but of the 
world.” 

Master Reichenbach, indeed, may take 
a genuine interest in my father’s plans, but 
I have suspicions of Ulrich von Gersdorf. 
He seems to me far more interested in 
Chriemhild’s embroidery than in our father’s 
steam-pump; and although he continues to 
talk of Eva as if he thought her an angel, 


he certainly sometimes looks at Chriemhild 
as if he thought her a creature as interesting. 

I do not like such transitions; and, besides, 
his conversation is so very different, in my 
opinion, from Master Reiclienbach’s. Ulrich 
von Gersdorf has no experience of life 
beyond a boar-hunt, a combat with some 
rival knights, or a foray on some defenceless 
merchants. His life has been passed in the 
castle of an uncle of his in the Thuringen 
Forest; and I cannot wonder that Chriem¬ 
hild listens, with a glow of interest on her 
face, as she sits with her eyes bent on her 
embroidery, to his stories of ambushes and 
daring surprises, But to me this life seems 
rude and lawless. Ulrich’s uncle was un¬ 
married; and n had no ladies in the 
castle except a widowed aunt of Ulrich, who 
seems to be as proud as Lucifer, and 
especially to pride herself on being able to 
wear pearls and velvet, which no burgher’s 
wife may appear in. 

Ulrich’s mother died early. I fancy she 
was gentler and of a truer nobleness. He 
says the only book they have in the castle 
is an old illuminated Missal which belonged 
to her. He has another aunt, Beatrice, who 
is in the convent at Nimptschen with our 
Eva. They sent her there to prevent her 
marrying the son of a family with whom 
they had an hereditary feud. I begin to 
feel, as Fritz used to say, that the life of 
these petty nobles is not nearly so noble 
as that of the burghers. They seem to know 
nothing of the world beyond the little 
district they rule by terror. They have no 
honest way of maintaining themselves, but 
live by the hard toil of their poor oppressed 
peasants, and by the plunder of their 
enemies. 

Herr Reichenbach, on the other hand, is 
connected with the patrician families in the 
great city of Niirnberg; and although he 
does not talk much, he has histories to tell 
of painters and poets, and great events in the 
broad field of the world. " Ah, I wish he 
had known Fritz! He likes to hear me 
talk of him. 

And then, moreover, Herr Reichenbach 
has much to tell me about Brother Martin 
Luther, who is at the head of the Eremite 
or Augustine Convent here, and seems to 
me to be the great man of Wittenberg; at, 
least people appear to like him, or dislike 
him more than any one else here. 



fiLSE'S STORY. 


89 


October 19, 1512. 

This has been a great day at Wittenberg. 
Friar Martin Luther has been created 
Doctor of Divinity. Master Reichenbach 
procured us execellent places, and we saw 
the degree conferred on him by Dr. Andrew 
Bodenstein of Carlstadt, 

The great bell of the city churches, which 
only sounds on great occasions, pealed as if 
for a Church festival; all the University 
authorities marched in procession through 
the streets; and after taking the vow, Friar 
Martin was solemnly invested with the 
doctor’s robes, hat, and ring—a massive 
gold ring presented to him by the Elector. 

But the part which impressed me most 
was the oath, which Dr. Luther pronounced 
most solemnly, so that the words, in his 
tine clear voice, rang through the silence. 
He repeated it after Dr. Bodenstein, who 
is commonly called Carlstadt. The words 
in Latin, Herr Reichenbach says, were 
these (he wrote them for me to send to 
Eva),— 

“ Juro me veritatem evangelicam virihter 
defensurum;” which Herr Reichenbach 
translated, “ I swear vigorously to defend 
evangelical truth." 

This oath is only required at one other 
University besides Wittenberg,—that of 
Tubingen. Dr Luther swore it as if he 
were a knight of olden times, vowing to 
risk life and limb in some sacred cause, To 
rue, who could not understand the words, 
his manner was more that of a warrior 
swearing on his sword, than of a doctor of 
divinity. 

And Master Reichenbach says, “ What 
he lias promised he will do.” 

Chriemhild laughs at Master Reichenbach, 
because he has entered his name on the list 
of University students, in order to attend 
Dr. Luther’s lectures. 

“ With his grave old face, and his grey 
hair,” she says, “to sit among those noisy 
student boys.” . . 

But I can see nothing laughable in it. 1 
think it is a sign of something noble; for a 
man in the prime of life to be content to 
learn as a little child. And besides, what 
ever Chriemhild may say, if Herr Reichen¬ 
bach is a little bald, and has a few grey 
hairs, it is not on account of age. Grown 
men, who think and feel in these stormy 
times, cannot be expected to have smooth 
faces and full curly locks, like Ulrich von 
sdorf. 


I am sure if I were a man twice as old as 
he is, there is nothing I should like better 
than to attend Dr. Luther’s lectures. I 
have heard him preach once in the City 
Church, and it was quite different from any 
other sermon I ever heard. He spoke of 
God and Christ, and heaven and hell, with 
as much conviction and simplicity as if he 
had been pleading some cause of human 
wrong, or relating some great events which 
happened on earth yesterday, instead of 
reciting it like a piece of Latin grammer, as 
so many of the monks do. 

I began to feel as if 1 might at last find 
a religion that would do for me. Even 
Christopher was attentive. He said Dr. 
Luther called everything by such plain 
names, one could not help understanding. 

We have seen him once at our house. He 
was so respectful to our grandmother, and 
so patient with my father, and he spoke so 
kindly of Fritz. 

Fritz has written to us, and has recom¬ 
mended us to take Dr. Martin Luther for 
our family confessor. He says he can 
never repay the good Dr. Luther has done 
to him. And certainly he writes more 
brightly and hopefully than he ever has 
since he left us, although he has, alas! 
finally taken those dreadful, irrevocable 
vows. 

March, 151=3. 

Dr. Luther has consented to be our con¬ 
fessor; and thank God I do believe at last I 
have found the religion which may make 
me, even me, love God. Dr. Luther says I 
have entirely misunderstood God and the 
Lord Jesus Christ. He seemed to under¬ 
stand all I have been longing for and per¬ 
plexing myself about all my life, with a 
glance. When I began to falter out my 
confessions and difficulties to him, he 
seemed to see them all spread before him, 
and explained them all to me. He says I 
have been thinking of God as a severe 
judge, an exactor, a harsh creditor, when 
he is a giver, a forgiving Saviour, yea, the 
very fountain of inexpressible love. 

“ God’s love,” he said, “ gives in such a 
way that it flows from a Father’s heart, the 
well-spring of all good. The heart of the 
giver makes the gift dear and precious; as 
among ourselves we say of even a trifling 
gift, ‘ It comes from a hand we love,’ and 
look not so much at the gift as at the 
heart.” 

“ If we will only consider him in his 




90 


THE SC HONE ERG-COTTA FAMILY. 


works, we shall learn that God is nothing 
else but pure, unutterable love, greater and 
more than any one can think. The shame¬ 
ful thing is, that the world does not regard 


this, nor thank him for it, although every ,pthe living essence ot the divine nature, 


day it sees before it such countless benefits 
from him; and it deserves for its ingratitude 
that the sun should not shine another mo¬ 
ment longer, nor the grass grow, yet he 
ceases not, without a moment’s interval, to 
love us, and to do us good. Language 
must fail me to speak of his spiritual gifts. 
Here he pours forth, for us, not sun and 
moon, nor heaven and earth, but his own 
heart, his beloved Son, so that he suffered 
his blood to be shed, and the most shame¬ 
ful death to be inflicted on him, for us 
wretched, wicked, thankless creatures. 
How, then, can we say anything but that 
God is an abyss of endless, unfathomable 
lov k e?” 

“ The whole Bible,” he says, “ is full of 
this, that we should not doubt, but be abso¬ 
lutely certain, that God is merciful, gra¬ 
cious, patient, faithful and true; who not 
only will keep his promises, but already has 
kept and done abundantly beyond what he 
promised, since he has given his own Son 
for our sins on the cross, that all who be¬ 
lieve in him should not perish, but have 
everlasting life.” 

“ Whoever believes and embraces this,” 
he added, “that God has given his only 
Son to die for us poor sinners, to him it is 
no longer any doubt, but the most certain 
truth, that God reconciles us to himself, and 
is favorable and heartily gracious to us.” 

“Since the gospel shows us Christ the 
Son of God, who, according to the will of 
the Father, lias offered himself up for us, 
and has satisfied for sin, the heart can no 
more doubt God’s goodness and grace,—is 
no more affrighted, nor flies from God, but 
sets all its hope in his goodness and mercy.” 

“ The apostles are always exhorting us,” 
he says, “ to continue in the love of God,— 
that is, that each one should entirely con¬ 
clude in his heart that he is loved by God; 
and set before our eyes a certain proof of 
it, in that God has not spared his Son, but 
given him for the world, that through his 
death the world might again have life. 

“ It is God’s honor and glory to give 
liberally. His nature is all pure love; so 
that if any one would describe or picture 
God, he must describe One who is pure 
j 0 ye, the divine nature being nothing else 


than a furnace and glow of such love that 
it fills heaven and earth. 

“ Love is an image of God, and not a 
dead image, nor one painted on paper, but 


which burns full of all goodness. 

“ He is not harsh, as we are to those who 
have injured us. We withdraw our hand 
and close our purse; but he is kind to the 
unthankful and the evil. 

“ He sees thee in thy poverty and wretch¬ 
edness, and knows thou hast nothing to 
pay. Therefore he freely forgives, and 
gives thee all.” 

“ It is not to be borne,” he said, “that 
Christian people should say, We cannot 
know whether God is favorable to us or 
not. On the contrary, we should learn to 
say, I know that I believe in Christ, and 
therefore that God is my gracious Father.” 

“ What is the reason that God gives?” 
he said, one day. “ What moves him to 
it ? Nothing but unutterable love, because 
he delights to give and to bless. What 
does he give ? Not empires merely, not a 
world full of silver and gold, not heaven 
and earth only, but his Son, who is as great 
as himself,—that is, eternal and incompre¬ 
hensible; a gift as infinite as the Giver, the 
very spring and fountain of all grace; yea, 
the possession and property of all the riches 
and treasures of God.” 

Dr. Luther said also, that the best name 
by which we can think of God is Father. 
“It is a loving, sweet, deep, heart-touch¬ 
ing name; for the name of father is in its 
nature full of inborn sweetness and com¬ 
fort. Therefore, also, we must confess 
ourselves children of God; for by this name 
we deeply touch our God, since there is not 
a sweeter sound to the father than the voice 
of the child.” 

All this is wonderful to me. I scarcely 
dare to open my hand, and take this belief 
home to my heart. 

Is it then, indeed, thus we must think of 
God? Is he, indeed, as Dr. Luther says, 
ready to listen to our feeblest cry, ready to 
forgive us, and to help us ? 

And if he is indeed like this, and cares 
what we think of him, how I must have 
grieved him all these years ! 

Not a moment longer,—I will not distrust 
Thee a moment longer. See, heavenly 
Father, I have come back ! 

Jan it, indeed, be possible that God is 




ELSE’S STORY. 


91 


pleased when we trust him,—pleased when 
we pray, simply because he loves us ? 

Can it indeed be true, as Dr. Luther 
says, that love is our greatest virtue; and 
that we please God best by being kind to 
each other, just because that is what is 
most like him? 

1 am~sure it is true. It is so good, it 
must be true. 

Then it is possible for me, even for me, 
to love God. How is it possible for me, 
not to love him ? And it is possible for me, 
even for me, to be religious, if to be relig¬ 
ious is to love God, and to do whatever we 
can to make those around us happy. 

But if this is indeed religion, it is happi¬ 
ness, it is freedom,—it is life ! 

Why, then, are so many of the religious 
people I know of a sad countenance, as if 
they w'ere bond-servants toiliug for a hard 
master ?” 

I must ask Dr. Luther. 

April , 1513. 

I have asked Dr. Luther, and he says it 
is because the devil makes a great deal of 
the religion we see; that he pretends to be 
Christ, and comes and terrifies people, and 
scourges them with the remembrance of 
their sins, and tells them they must not 
dare to lift up their eyes to heaven; God is 
so holy, and they are so sinful. But it is 
all because he knows that if they would lift 
their eyes to heaven, their terrors would 
vanish, and they would see Christ there, 
not as the Judge and the hard, exacting 
Creditor, but as the pitiful, loving Saviour. 

I find it a great comfort to believe in this 
way in the devil. Has he not been trying 
to teach me his religion all my life ? And 
now I have found him out. He lias been 
telling us lies, not about myself (Dr. Luther 
says he can not paint us more sinful than we 
are); but lies about God. It helps me al¬ 
most as much to hear Dr. Luther speak 
about the devil as about God—‘‘the malig¬ 
nant, sad spirit/’ he says, “ who loves to 
make every one sad.” 

With God’s help, I will never believe him 
again. But Dr. Luther said I shall, often; 
that he will come again and malign God, 
and assail my peace in so many ways, that 
it will be long before I learn to know him. 

I shuddered when he told me this; but 
then he reassured me, by telling me a beau¬ 
tiful story, which, he said, was from the 
Bible. It was about a Good Shepherd and 


silly, wandering sheep, and a wolf who 
sought to devour them. “All the care of 
the Shepherd,” he said, “ is in the tenderest 
way to attract the sheep to keep close to 
^iim; and when they wander, he goes and 
seeks them, takes them on his shoulder, and 
carries them safe home. All our wisdom,” 
he says, “ is to keep always near this Good 
Shepherd, who is Christ, and to listen to his 
voice.” 

I know the Lord Jesus Christ is called the 
Good Shepherd. I have seen the picture of 
him carrying the lamb qh his shoulder. But 
until Dr. Luther explained it to me, I 
thought it meant that he was the Lord and 
Owner of all the world, who are his fiock. 
But I never thought that he cared for me 
as his sheep, sought me, called me, watched 
me, even me, day by day. 

Other people, no doubt, have understood 
all this before. And yet, if so, why do not 
the monks preach of it ? Why should Aunt 
Agnes serve Him in the convent by pen¬ 
ances and self-tormentings, instead of serv¬ 
ing him in the world by being kind and 
helping all around. Why should our dear, 
gentle mother, have such sad, self-reproach¬ 
ful thoughts, and feel as if she and our 
family were under a curse? 

Dr. Luther said that Christ was “ made a 
curse for us,” that he, the unspotted and 
undefiled Lamb of God, bore the curse for 
us on the cross; and that we, believing in 
him, are not under the curse, but under the 
blessing—that we are blessed. 

This, then, is what the crucifix and the 
Agnus Dei mean. 

Doubtless many around me have under¬ 
stood all this long ago. I am sure, at least, 
that our Eva understood it. 

But what inexpressible joy for me, as 1 
sit at my embroidery in the garden, to look 
up through the apple-blossoms and the flut¬ 
tering leaves, and to see God’s love there;— 
to listen to the thrush that has built his nest 
among them, and feel God’s love, who cares 
for the birds, in every note that swells his 
little throat;—to look beyond to the bright 
blue depths of the sky, and feel they are a 
canopy of blessing—the roof the house of 
my Father; that if clouds pass over, it is the 
unchangeable light they veil; that, even 
when the day itself passes, I shall see 
that the night itself only unveils new 
worlds of light;—and to know that if I 
could unwrap fold after fold of God’s uni¬ 
verse, I should only unfold more and more 





'2 


THE SC 110NBERG-COTTA FAMILY . 


blessing, and see deeper and deeper into the 
love which is at the heart of all! 

And then what joy again to turn to my 
embroidery, and, as my fingers busily ply 
the needle, to think— 

“ This is to help my father and mother; 
this, even this, is a little work of love. And 
as 1 sit and stitch, God is pleased with me, 
and with what I am doing. He gives me 
this to do, as much as he gives the priests 
to pray, and Dr. Luther to preach. I am 
serving Him, and he is near me in my little 
corner of the world* and is pleased with me 
— even with me!” 

Oh, Fritz and Eva! if you had both 
known this, need you have left us to go 
and serve God so far away ? 

Have I indeed, like St. Christopher, found 
my bank of the river, where I can serve my 
Saviour by helping all the pilgrims I can? 

Better, better than St. Christopher; for 
do I not know the voice that calls to me,— 

“ Else 1 Else ! do this for me ? ” 

And now I do not feel at all afraid to 
grow old, which is a great relief, as I am 
already six-and-twenty, and the children 
think me nearly as old as our mother. For 
what is growing old, if Dr. Martin Luther 
is indeed right (and I am sure he is), but 
growing daily nearer God, and his holy, 
happy house ! Dr. Luther says our Saviour 
called heaven his Father’s house. 

Not that I wish to leave this world. 
While God wills we should stay here, and 
is with us, is it not homelike enough for us ? 

May, 1513. 

This morning I was busy making a favor¬ 
ite pudding of the father’s, when I heard 
Herr Reichen bach’s voice at the door. He 
went into the dwelling-room, and soon after¬ 
wards Chriemhild, Atlantis, and Tliekla, in¬ 
vaded the kitchen. 

“ Herr Reichenbach wishes to have a 
consultation,” said Chriemhild, “and we 
are sent away.” 

I felt anxious for a moment. It seemed 
like the old Eisenach days; but since we 
have been at Wittenberg we have never 
gone into debt; so that, after thinking a 
little, I was re-assured. The children were 
full of speculations what it would be about. 
Chriemhild thought it was some affair of 
state, because she had seen him in close 
confabulation with Ulrich von Gersdorf as 
he came up the street, and they had proba¬ 


bly been discussing some question about the 
privileges of the nobles and burghers. 

Atlantis believed it had something to do 
with Dr. Martin Luther, because Herr 
Reichenbach had presented the mother with 
a new pamphlet of the Doctor’s, on entering 
the room. 

Tliekla was sure it was at last the oppor¬ 
tunity to make use of one of the father’s 
discoveries,—whether the perpetual clock, 
or the transmutation of metals, or the 
steam-pump, she could not tell; but she 
was persuaded it was something which was 
to make our fortunes at last, because Herr 
Reichenbach looked so very much in earnest, 
and was so very respectful to our father. 

They had not much time to discuss their 
various theories when we heard Herr 
Reiehenbach’s step pass hurriedly through 
the passage, and the door closed hastily 
after him. 

“ Do you call that a consultation ? ” said 
Chriemhild, scornfully; “he has not been 
here ten minutes.” 

The next instant our mother appeared, 
looking very pale, and with her voice tremb¬ 
ling as she said,— 

“ Else, my child, we want you.” 

“ You are to know first, Else,” said the 
children. “ Well, it is only fair; you are a 
dear good eldest sister, and will be sure to 
tell us.” 

I scarcely knew why, but my fingers did 
not seem as much under control as usual, 
and it was some moments before I could put 
the finishing stroke to my pudding, wash 
my hands, pull down the white sleeves to 
my wrists, and join them in the dwelling- 
room, so that my mother re-appeared with 
an impatience very unusual for her, and led 
me in herself. 

“ Else, darling, come here,” said my 
father. And when he felt my hand in his, 
he added, “ Herr Reichenbach left a mes¬ 
sage for thee. Other parents often decide 
these matters for their children, but thy 
mother and I wish to leave the matter to 
thee. Coulclst thou be his wife ? ” 

The question took me by surprise, and I 
could only say,— 

“ Can it be possible he thinks of me ? ” 

“ I see nothing impossible in that, my 
Else,” said my father; “but at all events 
Herr Reichenbach has placed that beyond a 
doubt. The question now is whether our 
Else can think of him.” 

I could not say anything. 



ELSE'S STORY. 


93 


“ Think well before you reject him,” said 
my father; “ he is a good and generous 
man, he desires no portion with thee, and 
he says thou wouldst be a portion for a 
king; and I must say he is very intelligent 
and well-informed, and can appreciate sci¬ 
entific inventions as few men in these days 
can.” 

“I do not wish him to be dismissed,” 1 
faltered. 

But ray tender-hearted mother said, laying 
my head on her shoulder,— 

“ Yet think well, darling, before you 
accept him. We are not poor now, and we 
need no stranger’s wealth to make us happy. 
Heaven forbid that our child should sacrifice 
herself for us. Herr Reiehenbach is, no 
doubt, a good and wise man, but I know 
well a young maiden’s fancy. He is little, 
I know—not tall and stalwart, like our 
Fritz and Christopher; and he is a little 
bald, and he is not very young, and rather 
grave and silent, and young girls—” 

“ But, mother,” I said, “ I am not a young 
girl, I am six-and-twenty; and I do not 
think Herr Reiehenbach old, and I never 
noticed that he was bald, and I am sure to 
me he is not silent.” 

“That will do, Else,” said the grand¬ 
mother, laughing from her corner by the 
stove. “ Son and daughter, let these two 
settle it together. They will arrange mat¬ 
ters better than we shall for them.” 

And in the evening Herr Reiehenbach 
came again, and everything was arranged. 

“ And that is what the consultation was 
about!” said the children, not tvithout 
some disappointment. “ It seems such an 
ordinary thing,” said Atlantis, “ we are so 
used to seeing Herr Reiehenbach. He 
comes almost every day.” 

“ I do not see that that is any objection,” 
said Chriemhild; “ but it seems hardly like 
being married, only just to cross the street. 
His house is just opposite. 

“ But it is a great deal prettier than 
ours,” said Thekla. “ I like Herr Reichen- 
bach; no one ever took such an interest in 
my drawings as he does. He tells me where 
they are wrong, and shows me how to make 
them right, as if he really felt it of some 
consequence; which it is, you know, Else, 
because one day 1 mean to embroider and 
help the family, like you. And no one was 
ever so kind to Nix as he is. He took the 


Nix would not let any one else do but me. 
Nix is very fond of Herr Reiehenbach, and 
so am I. He is much wiser, I think, than 
Ulrich, who teases Nix, and pretends never 
to know my cats from my cows; and I do 
not see that he is much older; besides, I 
could not bear our Else to live a step further 
off.” And Thekla climbed on my lap and 
kissed me, while Nix stood on his hind-legs 
and barked, evidently thinking it was a 
great occasion. So that two of the family 
at least have given their.consent. 

But none of the family know yet what 
Herr Reiehenbach said to me when we stood 
for a few minutes by the window, before 
he left this evening. He said,— 

“ Else, it is God who gives me this joy. 
Ever since the evening when you all arrived 
at Wittenberg, and I saw you tenderly 
helping the aged and directing the young 
ones, and never flurried in all the bustle, 
but always at leisure to thank any one for 
any little kindness, or to help any one out 
of any little difficulty, I thought you were 
the light of this home, and I prayed God 
one day to make you the light of mine.” 

Ah! that shows how love veils people’s 
faults; but he did not know Fritz, and not 
much of Eva. They were the true sunshine 
of our home. However, at all events, with 
God’s help, I will do my very best to make 
Herr Reichenbach’s home bright. 

But the best of all is, I am not afraid to 
accept this blessing, I believe it is God, 
out of his inexpressible love, as Dr. Luther 
says, who has given it me, and I am not 
afraid he will think me too happy. 

Before I had Dr. Luther for my confessor, 
I should never have known if it was to be a 
blessing or a curse, but now I am not afraid. 
A chain seems to have dropped from my 
heart, and a veil from my eyes, and I can 
call God Father, and take everything fear¬ 
lessly from him, 

And I know Gottfried feels the same. 
Since I never had a vocation for the higher 
religious life, it is an especial mercy for me 
to have found a religion which enables a 
poo •»everv-day maiden in the world to love 
G o <i .m t toseeK ms Oiessing. 

June. 

Our mother has been full of little tender 
apologies to me this week, for having called 
Gottfried (Herr Reiehenbach says I am to 


og on his knee the other day, and drew 


it a splinter which had lamed him, which grave, 


call him so) old, and bald, and little, and 




94 


TEE SCIIOJIBERG-COTTA FAMILY. 


“ You know, darling, I only meant I did 
not want you to accept him for our sakes. 
And after all, as you say, he is scarcely 
bald; and they say all men who think much 
lose their hair early; and I am sure it is no 
advantage to be always talking; and every 
one cannot be as tall as our Fritz and Chris¬ 
topher.” 

‘•'And after all, dear mother,” said the 
grandmother, “Else did not choose Herr 
Reichenbach for your sakes; but are you 
quite sure he did not choose Else for her 
father’s sake ? He was always so interested 
in the steam-pump!” 

My mother and I are much cheered by 
seeing the quiet influence Herr Reichenbach 
seems to have over Christopher, whose com¬ 
panions and late hours have often caused us 
anxiety lately. Christopher is not distrust¬ 
ful of him, because he is no priest, and no 
great favorer of monks and convents; and 
he is not so much afraid of Christopher aswe 
timid, anxious women, were beginning to 
be. He thinks there is good metal in him; 
and he says the best ore cannot look like 
gold until it is fused. It is so difficult for 
us )vomen, who have to watch from our 
quiet homes afar, to distinguish the glow of 
the smelting furnace from the glare of a 
conflagration. 

Wittenberg, September , 1513. 

This morning, Herr Reichenbach, Chris¬ 
topher, and Ulrich von Gersdorf (who is 
studying here for a time), came in full of 
excitement, from a discussion they had been 
hearing between Dr. Luther and some of 
the doctors and professors of Erfurt. 

I do not know that I quite clearly under¬ 
stand what it was about; but they seem to 
think it of great importance. 

Our house has become rather a gathering- 
place of late; partly, I think, on account of 
my father’s blindness, which always insures 
that there will be some one at home. 

It seems that Dr. Luther attacks the old 
method of teaching in the universities, which 
makes the older professors look on him as a 
dangerous innovator, while the young de¬ 
light in him as a hero fighting their battles. 
And yet the authorities Dr. Luther wishes 
to re-instate are older than those he attacks. 
He demands that nothing shall be received 
as the standard of theological truth except 
the Holy. Scriptures. I cannot understand 
why there should be so much conflict about 

is, because I thought all we believed was 


founded on the Holy Scriptures. I suppose 
it is not; but if not, on whose authority? I 
must ask Gottfried this one day when we 
are alone. 

The discussion to-day was between Dr. 
Andrew Bodenstein, Archdeacon of Witten¬ 
berg, Dr. Luther, and Dr. Todocus of 
Eisenach, called Trutvetter, his old teacher 
Dr. Carlstadt himself, they said, seemed 
quite convinced; and Dr. Todocus was 
silenced, and is going back to Erfurt. 

The enthusiasm of the students is great. 
The great point of Dr. Luther’s attackseems 
to be Aristotle, who was a heathen Greek. 
I cannot think why these Church doctors 
should be so eager to defend him; but Herr 
Reichenbach says all the teaching of the 
schools and all the doctrine of indulgences 
are in some way founded on this Aristotle, 
and that Dr. Luther wants to clear away 
everything which stands as a screen between 
the students and the Bible. 

Ulrich von Gersdorf said that our doctor 
debates like his uncle, Franz vonSukingen, 
tights. He stands like a rock on some point 
he feels firm on; and then, when his oppo¬ 
nents are weary of trying to move him, he 
rushes suddenly down on them, and sweeps 
them away like a torrent. 

“ But his great secret seems to be, re¬ 
marked Christopher, “that he believes 
every word he says. He speaks like other 
men—works as if every stroke were to tell.” 

And Gottfried said, quietly, “ He is fight¬ 
ing the battle of God with the seribes and 
Pharisees of our days; and whether he 
triumph or perish, the battle will be won. 
It is a battle, not merely against falsehood, 
but for truth, to keep a position he has 
won.” 

“When I hear him,” said Ulrich, “I wish 
my student days over, and long to be in the 
old castle in the Thuringen forest, to give 
everything good there a new impulse. He 
makes me feel the way to fight the world’s 
great battles is for each to conquer the ene¬ 
mies of God in his own heart and home. He 
speaks of Aristotle and Augustine; but he 
makes me think of the sloth and tyranny in 
the castle, and the misery and oppression in 
the peasant’s hut, which are to me what 
Aristotle and the schoolmen are to him.” 

“ And I,” said Christopher, “ when he 
speaks, think of our printing-press, until 
my daily toil there seems the highest work 
I could do; and to be a printer, and wing 




ELSE'S 

such words as his through the world, the 
noblest thing on earth.” 

“ But his lectures light the good fight 
even more than his disputations,” remarked 
Gottfried. “In these debates he clears the 
world of the foe; but in his explanations of 
the Psalms and the Romans, he carries the 
battle within, and clears the heart of the 
lies which kept it back from God. In his 
attacks on Aristotle, he leads you to the 
Bible as the one source of truth; in his dis¬ 
courses on justification by faith, he leads 
you to God as the one source of holiness 
and joy.” 

“They say poor Dr. Todocus is quite ill 
with vexation at his defeat,” said Christo¬ 
pher; “and that there are many bitter 
things said against Dr. Luther at Erfurt.” 

“What does that matter,” rejoined Ul¬ 
rich, “since Wittenberg is becoming every 
month more thronged with students from 
all parts of Germany, and the Augustinian 
cloister is already full of young monks, 
sent hither from various convents, to study 
under Dr. Luther? The youth and vigor 
of the nation are with us. Let the dead 
bury their dead.” 

“Ah, children,” murmured the grand¬ 
mother, looking up from her knitting, “that 
is a funeral procession that lasts long. The 
young always speak of the old as if they 
had been born old. Do you think our 
hearts never throbbed high with hope, and 
that we never fought with dragons? Yet 
the old serpent is not killed yet. Nor will 
he be dead when we are dead, and you are 
old, and your grandchildren take their place 
in the old. fight, and think they are fighting 
the first battle the world has seen, and van¬ 
quishing the last enemy.” 

“ Perhaps not,” said Gottfried; “ but the 
last enemy will be overcome at last, and who 
knows how soon ?” 

Wittenberg, October , 1513. 

It is a strong bond of union between Herr 
Reichenbach and me, our reverence and 
love for Dr. Luther. 

He is lecturing now on the Romans and 
the Psalms, and as I sit at my spinning- 
wheel. or sew, Gottfried often reads to me 
notes from these lectures, or tells me what 
1 hey have been about. This is a comfort to 
me also, because he has many thoughts and 
doubts which, were it not for his friendship'- 
with Dr. Luther, would make me tremble 
for him. They are so new and strange to 


STORY. 95 

me; and as it is, I never venture to speak 
of them to my mother. 

He thinks there is great need of reforma¬ 
tions and changes in the Church. He even 
thinks Christopher not far from right in his 
dislike of many of the priests and monks, 
who, he says, lead lives which are a disgrace 
to Christendom. 

But his chief detestation is the sale of in¬ 
dulgences, now preached in many of the 
towns of Saxony, by Dr. Tetzel. He says 
it is a shameless traffic in lies, and that most 
men of intelligence and standing in the 
great cities think so. And he tells me that 
a very good man, a professor of theology— 
Dr. John Wesel—preached openly against 
them about fifty years ago at the University 
of Erfurt, and afterwards at Worms and 
Mainz; and that John of Gocli and other 
holy men were most earnest in denouncing 
them. 

And when I asked if the Pope did not 
sanction them, he said that to understand 
what the Pope is one needs to go to Rome. 
He went there in his youth, not on pilgrim¬ 
age, but on mercantile business, and he told 
me that the wickedness he saw there, espe¬ 
cially in the family of the reigning Pope, 
the Borgia, for many years made him hate 
the very name of religion. Indeed, he said 
it was principally through Dr. Luther that 
he had begun again to feel there could be a 
religion, which, instead of being a cloak for 
sin, should be an incentive to holiness. 

He says also that I have been quite mis¬ 
taken about “Reincke Fuchs;” that it is no 
vulgar jest-book, mocking at really sacred 
things, but a bitter, earnest satire against 
the hypocrisy which practices all kinds of 
sins in the name of sacred things. 

He doubts even if the Calixtines and 
Hussites are as bad as they have been repre¬ 
sented to be. It alarms me sometimes to 
hear him say these things. His world is so 
much larger than mine, it is difficult for my 
thoughts to follow him into it. If the world 
is so bad, and there is so much hypocrisy in 
the holiest places, perhaps 1 have been hard 
on poor Christopher after all. 

But if Fritz has found it so, how unhappy 
it must make him ! 

Can really religious people like Fritz and 
Eva do nothing better for the world, but 
leave it and grow more and more corrupt 
and -unbelieving, while they sit apart to 
weave their robes of sanctity in convents. 



90 


THE SC IIONB ERG-COTTA FAMILY. 


It does Poem time for something to he done. 
I wonder who will do it? 

I thought it might be the Pope; but Gott¬ 
fried shakes his head, and says, “ No good 
thing can begin at Rome.” 

“Or the prelates ?” 1 asked one day. 

“They are too intent,” he said, “on mak¬ 
ing their courts as magnificent as those of 
the princes, to be able to interfere with the 
abuses by which their revenues are main¬ 
tained.*’ 

“ Or the princes ?” 

“The friendship of the prelates is too im¬ 
portant to them, for them to interfere in 
spiritual matters.” 

“Or the emporer ?” 

“The emperor,” he said, “has enough 
to do to hold his own against the princes, 
the prelates, and the pope.” 

“ Or the knights ?” 

“The knights are at war with all the 
world,” he replied; “to say nothing of 
their ceaseless private feuds with each other. 
With the peasants rising on one side in wild 
insurrection, the great nobles contending 
against, their privileges on the other, and the 
great burgher families throwing their bar¬ 
barous splendor into the shade as much as 
the city palaces do their bare robber castles, 
the knights and petty nobles have little but 
bitter woi ds to spare for the abuses of the 
clergy. Besides, most of them have rela¬ 
tions whom they hope to provide for with 
some good abbey.” 

“Then the peasants!” I suggested. “Did 
not the gospel tirst take root among peas¬ 
ants?” 

“Inspired peasants and fishermen,” he 
replied, thoughtfully. “ Peasants who had 
walked up and down the land three years 
in the presence of the Master. But who is 
to teach our peasants now? They cannot 
read!” 

“ Then it must be the burghers,” I said. 

“ Kaeh may be prejudiced in favor of his 
order,*' he replied, with a smile; “but I 
think if better days dawn, it will be through 
the cities. There the new learning takes 
root; there the rich have society and culti¬ 
vation, and the poor have teachers; and 
men’s minds are brightened by contact and 
debate, and there is leisure to think and 
freedom to speak. If a reformation of 
abuses were to begin, I think the burghers 
would promote it most of all.” 

“ But who is to begin it?” I asked. “ Has 
no one ever tried ?” 


“Many have tried,” he replied, sadly; 
“ and many have perished in trying. While 
they were assailing one abuse, otheis 
were increasing. Or while they endeavored 
to heal some open wound, some one arose 
and declared that it was impossible to sepa¬ 
rate the disease from the whole frame, and 
that they were attempting the life of our 
Holy Mother the Church.” 

“Who, then, will venture to begin ?” I 
said. “Can it be Dr. Luther? He is bold 
enough to venture anything; and since he 
has done so much good to Fritz, and to you, 
and to me, why not to the whole Church ?’ 

“ Dr. Luther is faithful enough, and bold 
enough for anything his conscience calls 
him to,” said Gottfried; “ but he is occupied 
with saving men’s souls, not with reforming 
ecclesiasticl abuses.” 

“But if the ecclesiastical abuses came to 
interfere with the salvation of men’s souls,” 
I suggested, “ what would Dr. Luther do 
then ?” 

“ We should see, Else,” said Gottfried. 
“ If the wolves attacked one of Dr. Luther’s 
sheep, I do not think he would care with 
what weapon he rescued it, or at wliat 
risk.” 


XII. 

EVA’S STORY. 

NiMPTSCHfiN. 1517. 

Great changes have taken place during 
these last three years in Aunt Cotta’s home. 
Else has been married more than two years, 
and sends me wounderful narratives of the 
beauty and wisdom of her little Margaret ho, 
who begins now to lisp the names of mother 
and father and aunts. Else has also taught 
the little creature to kiss her hand to a 
picture they have of me, and call it Cousin 
Eva. They will- not adopt my convent 
name. 

Chriemhild also is betrothed to the young 
knight, Ulrich von Gersdorf, who has a 
castle in the Thiiringen forest; and she 
writes that they often speak of Sister Ave, 
and that he keeps the dried violets still, 
with a lock of his mother’s hair and a relic 
of his patron saint. Chriemhild says l 
should scarcely know him again, he is 
become so earnest and so wise, and so full 
of good purposes. 

And little Thekla writes that she also 
j understands something of Latin. Else’s 





EVA'S STORY. 


husband has taught her: and there is 
nothing Else and Gottfried Reichenbach like 
so much as to hear her sing the hymns 
Cousin Eva used to sing. 

They seem to think of me as a kind of 
angel sister, who was early taken to God, 
and will never grow old. It is very sweet 
to be remembered thus) but sometimes it 
seems as if it were hardly me they were 
remembering or loving, but what I was or 
might have been. 

Would they recognize Cousin Eva in the 
grave, quiet woman of twenty-two I have 
t become? For whilst in the old home Time 
seems to mark his course like a stream by 
growth and life, here in the convent he 
seems to mark it only by the slow falling-of 
the shadow on the silent dial—the shadow 
of death. In the convent there is no 
i growth but growing old. 

In Aunt Cotta’s home the year expanded 
j from winter into spring, and summer, and 
i autumn—seed-time and harvest—the season 
of flowers and the season of fruits. The 
seasons grew into each other, we knew not 
how or when. In the convent the year is 
, sharply divided into December, January, 
February, March and April, with nothing 
i to distinguish one month from another but 
their names and dates. 

In our old home the day brightened from 
dawn to noon, and then mellowed into sun- 
! set, and softly faded into night. Here in 
the convent the day is separated into hours 
by the clock. 

Sister Beatrice’s poor faded face is slowly 
becoming a little more faded; Aunt Agnes’s 
a little more worn and sharp.; and I, like 
the rest, am six years older than I was six 
years ago, when I came here; and that is all. 

It is true, fresh novices have arrived, and 
j have taken the irrevocable vows, and fair 
| young faces are around me; but my heart 
[ aches sometimes when I look at them, and 
think that they, like the rest of us, have 
closed the door on life, with all its changes, 
and have entered on that monotonous path¬ 
way to the grave whose stages are simply 
growng old. 

Some of these novices come full of high 
aspirations for a religious life. They have 
been told about the heavenly Spouse, who 
will fill their consecrated hearts with pure, 
unutterable joys, the world can never know. 

Many corne as sacrifices to family poverty 
or family pride, because their noble parents 
are too poor to maintain them suitably, or 


97 

in order that their fortunes may swell the 
dower of some married sister. 

1 know what disappointment is before 
them when they learn that the convent is 
but a poor, childish mimicry of the world, 
with its petty ambitions and rivalries, but 
without the life and love. I know the 
noblest will suffer most, and may, perhaps, 
fall the lowest. 

To narrow, apathetic natures, the icy 
routine of habit will more easily replace the 
varied flow of life. They will fit into their 
harness sooner, and become as much in¬ 
terested in the gossip of the house or the 
order, the election of superiors, or the 
scandal of some neighboring nunnery as 
they would have become in the gossip of 
the town or village they would have lived 
in, in the world. 

But warm hearts and high spirits—these 
will chafe and struggle, and dream they 
have reached' depths of self abasement, or 
soared to heights of mystical devotion, and 
then awake, with bitter self-reproaches, to 
find themselves too weak to cope with some 
small temptation, like Aunt Agnes. 

These I will help all I can. But I have 
learned, since I came to Nimptschen, that 
it is a terrible and perilous thing to take the 
work of the training of our souls out of 
God’s hands into our own. The priming- 
knife in his hands must sometimes wound 
and seem to impoverish; but in ours it 
cuts, and wounds, and impoverishes, and 
does not prune. We can, indeed, inflict 
pain on ourselves; but God alone can make 
pain healing, or suffering discipline. 

I can only pray that, however mistaken 
many may be in immuring themselves here, 
Thou who art the Good Physician will take 
us, with all our useless self-inflicted wounds, 
and all our wasted, self-stunted faculties, 
and as we are and as thou art, still train us 
for thyself. 

The infirmary is what interests me most. 
Having secluded ourselves trom all the joys 
and sorrows and vicissitudes of common 
life, we seem scarcely to have left anything 
in God’s hands, wherewith to try our faith 
and subdue our wills to his, except sickness. 
Bereavements we cannot know who have 
bereaved ourselves of all companionship 
with our beloved for evermore on earth. 
Nor can we know the trials either of 
poverty or of prosperity, since we can never 
experience either; but having taken the 
vow of voluntary poverty on ourselves, 









THE SCHOKBERG-COTTA FAMILY. 


whilst we can never call anything in¬ 
dividually our own, we are freed from all 
anxieties by becoming members of a richly- 
endowed order. 

Sickness only remains beyond our control; 
and, therefore, when I see any of the sister¬ 
hood laid on the bed of suffering, I think— 

‘‘ God has laid thee there! ’’and I feel 
more sure that it is the right thing. 

I still instruct the novices; but sometimes 
the dreary question comes to me— 

“ For what am I instructing them ?” 

Life has no future for them—only a 
monotonous prolonging of the monotonous 
present. 

I try to feel, “I am training them for 
eternity.” But who can do tiiat but God, 
who inhabiteth eternity, and sees the links 
which connect every moment of the little 
circles of time with the vast circumference 
of the everlasting future ? 

But 1 do my best. Catharine von Bora, 
a young girl of sixteen, who has lately 
entered the convent, interests me deeply. 
There is such strength in her character and 
such warmth in her heart. But alas 1 what 
scope is there for these here ? 

Aunt Agnes has not opened her heart in 
any way to me. True, when I was ill, she 
watched over me as tenderly as Aufit Cotta 
could; but when I recovered, she seemed to 
repel all demonstrations of gratitude and 
affection, and went on with that round of 
penances and disciplines, which make the 
nuns reverence her as so especially saintly. 

Sometimes I look with longing to the 
smoke and lights in the village we can see 
among the trees from the upper windows of 
the convent. I know that each little 
wreath of smoke comes from the hearth of 
a home where there are father and mother 
and little children; and the smoke wreaths 
seem to me to rise like holy clouds of in¬ 
cense to God our Father in heaven. 

But the alms given so liberally by the 
sisterhood are given at the convent-gate, so 
that we never form any closer connection 
with the poor around us than that of beg¬ 
gars and almoners; and I long to be their 
frierid. 

Sometimes 1 am afraid I acted in impa¬ 
tient self-will in leaving Aunt Cotta’s home, 
and that I should have served God better 
by remaining there, and that, after all, my 
departure may have left some little blank it 
would not have been useless to fill. As the 
girls marry, Aunt Cotta might have found 


me a comfort; and, as “ Cousin Eva,” I 
might perhaps have been more of a help to 
Else’s children than I can be to the nuns 
here as Sister Ave. But whatever might 
have been, it is impatience and rebellion to 
think of that now; and qothing can sepa¬ 
rate me from God and his love. 

Somehow or other, however, even the 
“ Theologia Germanica,” and the high, dis¬ 
interested communion with God it teaches, 
seemed sweater to me, in the intervals of 
an interrupted and busy life, than as the 
business of this uninterrupted leisure. The 
horn s of contemplation were more blessed 
for the very trials and occupations which 
seemed to hinder them. 

Sometimes I feel as if my heart also were 
freezing, and becoming set and hard. 1 
am afraid, indeed, it would, were it not for 
poor Sister Beatrice, who has had a para¬ 
lytic stroke, and is now a constant inmate 
of the infirmary. She speaks at times very 
incoherently, and cannot think at any time 
connectedly. But I have found a book 
which interests her; it is the Latin Gospel 
of St. Luke, which 1 am allowed to take 
from the convent library and translate to 
her. The narratives are so brief and sim¬ 
ple, she can comprehend them, and sbe 
never wearies of hearing them. The very 
familiarity endears them, and to me they 
are always new. 

But it is very strange that there is nothing 
about penance or vows in it, or the adora¬ 
tion of the blessed Virgin. I suppose 1 
shall find that in the other Gospels, or in 
the Epistles, which were written after our 
Lady’s assumption into heaven. 

Sister Beatrice likes much to hear me 
sing the hymn by Bernard of Clugni, on 
the perpetuity of joy in heaven:*— 

Here brief is the sighing, 

And brief is the crying, 

For brief is the life l 
The life there is endless, 

The joy there is endless, 

And ended the strife. 


What joys are in heaven ? 

To whom are they given ? 

Ah 1 what ? and to whom ? 

The stars to the earth-born, 

“ Best robes ” to the sin-worn, 

The crown for the doom I 

* Hie breve vivitur, hie breve plangitur, hie breve 
fletur, 

Non breve vivere, non breve plangere, retribuetur, 
O retributio ! stat brevis actio, vita perennis, 

0 retributio 1 coelica mansio stat lue plenis, 
etc, etc, etc. 







EVA'S ST OKI 


O country the fairest! 

Our country the deai'est, 
We press towards thee! 
O Sion the golden! 

Our eyes now are holden, 
Thy light till we see: 


Thy crystalline ocean, 
Unvexed by commotion. 

Thy fountain of life; 
Thy deep peace unspoken, 
Pure, sinless unbroken,— 
Thy peace beyond strife: 


Thy meek saints all glorious, 
Thy martyrs victorious, 

Who suffer no more; 

Thy halls full of singing. 
Thy hymns ever ringing 
Along the safe shore. 


Like the lily for whiteness, 

Like the jewel for brightness, 
Thy vestments, O Bride! 

The Lamb ever with thee, 

The Bridegroom is with thee — 
With thee to abide’ 


We know not, we know not 
All human words show not, 
The joys we may reach; 
The mansions preparing, 
The joys for our sharing, 
The welcome for each. 


O Sion the golden! 

My eyes still are holden, 
Thy light till I see; 
And deep in thy glory, 
Unveiled then before me 
My King, look on thee! 


April , 1517. 

The whole of the Augustinian Order in 
•Saxony has been greatly moved by the 
visitation of Dr. Martin Luther. He has 
been appointed Deputy Viear-General in 
the place of Dr. Sraupitz, who has gone on 
a mission to the Netherlands, to collect 
relics for the Elector Frederic’s new church 
at Wittenberg. 

Last April Dr. Luther visited the Monas¬ 
tery of Grimma, not far from us; and 
through our Prioress, who is connected 
with the Prior of Grimma, we hear much 
about it. 

He strongly recommends the study of the 
Scriptures and of St. Augustine, in pre¬ 
ference to every other book, by the brethren 
and sisters of his Order. We have begun 
to follow his advice in our convent, and a 
new impulse seems given to everything. I 
have also seen two beautiful letters of Dr. 


Martin Luther's, written to two brethren of 
the Augustinian Order. Both were written 
in April last, and they have been read by 
many amongst us. The first was to Brother 
George Spenlein, a monk at Memmingen. 

It begins, “In the name of Jesus Christ.” 
After speaking of some private pecuniary 
matters, he writes:— 

“ As to the rest, 1 desire to know how it 
goes with thy soul; whether, weary of its 
own righteousness, it learns to breathe and 
to trust in the righteousness of Christ. For 
in our age the temptation to presumption 
burns in many, and chiefly in those who 
are trying with all their might to be just 
and good. Ignorant of the righteousness 
of God, which in Christ is given to us 
richly and without price, they seek in them¬ 
selves to do good works, so that at last they 
may have confidence to stand before God 
adorned with merits and virtues,—which is 
impossible. Thou, when with us, wert of 
this opinion, and so was I, but now I con¬ 
tend against this error, although 1 have not 
yet conquered it. 

“Therefore, my dear brother, learn Christ 
and him crucified; learn to sing to him, 
and, despairing of thyself, to say to him, 

‘ Lord Jesus, thou art my righteousness, but 
I am thy sin. Thou hast taken me upon 
thyself, and given to me what is thine; 
thou hast taken on thee what thou wast not, 
and hast given to me what I was not.’ Take 
care not to aspire to such a purity that thou 
shalt no longer seem to thyself a sinner; for 
Christ does not dwell except in sinners. For 
this he descended from heaven, where he 
abode with the just, that he might abide 
with sinners. Meditate on this love of his, 
and thou shalt drink in his sweet consola¬ 
tions. For if, by our labors and afflictions, 
we could attain quiet of conscience, why 
did he die? Therefore, only in Him, by a 
believing self-despair, both of thyself and 
of thy works, wilt thou find peace. For he 
has made thy^ sins his, and his righteousness 
he has made thine.” 

Aunt Agnes seemed to drink in these 
words like a patient in a raging fever. She 
made me read them over to her again and 
again, and then translate and copy them; 
and now she carries them about witli her 
everywhere. 

To me the words that follow are as pre¬ 
cious. Dr. Luther says, that as Christ hath 
borne patiently with us wanderers,we should 
also t>ear with others. “Prostrate thyself 







100 


THE 8CH0NB ERG-COTTA FAMILY\ 


before the Lord Jesus,” he writes, “ seek 
all that thou lackest. He himself will teach 
thee all, even to do for others as lie has done 
for thee.” 

The second letter was to Brother George 
Leiffer of Erfurt. It speaks of affliction 
thus:— 

“The cross of Christ is divided through¬ 
out the whole world. To each his portion 
comes in time, and does not fail. Thou, 
therefore, do not seek to cast thy portion 
from thee, but rather receive it as a holy 
relic, to be enshrined, not in a gold or silver 
reliquary, but in the sanctuary of a golden, 
that is a loving and submissive heart. For 
if the wood of the cross was so consecrated 
b 5 ^ contact with the flesh and blood oi Christ 
that it is considered as the noblest of relics, 
how much more are injuries, persecutions, 
sufferings, and the hatred of men, sacred 
relics, consecrated not by the touch of his 
body, but by contact with his most loving 
heart and Godlike will! These we should 
embrace, and bless, and cherish, since 
through him the curse is transmuted into 
blessing, suffering into glory, the cross into 

j°y*‘ ! 

Sister Beatrice delights in these words, 
and murmurs them over to herself as I have 
explained them to her. “Yes, 1 understand; 
this sickness, helplessness,—all I have lost 
and suffered,—are sacred relics from my 
Saviour, not because he forgets, but because 
lieremembers me—he remembers me. Sister 
Ave, I am content.” 

And then she likes me to sing her favor¬ 
ite hymn Jesu dulcis memoria :— 

O Jesus ! thy sweet men wry 
Can fill the heart with ecstasy; 

But passing all things sweet that be, 

Thy presence. Lord, to me. 

What hope. O Jesus, thou canst render 
To those who other hopes surrender ! 

To those who seek thee, O how tender ! 

But what to those who find 1 

With Mary, ere the morning break 
Him at the sepulchre 1 seek,— 

Would bear him to my spirit speak 
And see him with my heart. 

Wherever I may chance to be, 

Thee first my heart desires to see; 

How glad when I discover thee; 

How blest when I retain. 

Beyond all treasures is thy grace,— 

Oh, when wilt thou thy steps retrace 
And satisfy me with thy face. 

And make me wholly glad ? 


Then come, Oil, come, thou perfect King, 

Of boundless glory, boundless spring; 

Arise, and fullest daylight bring, 

Jesus, expected long 1 

May, 1517. 

Aunt Agnes has spoken to me at last. 
Abruptly and sternly, as if more angry with 
herself than repenting or rejoicing, she said 
to me this morning, “Child, those words 
of Dr. Luther’s have searched my heart. I 
have been trying all my life to be a saint, 
and so to reach God. And I have failed 
utterly. And now I learn that I am a sin¬ 
ner, and yet that God’s love reaches me. 
The cross, the cross of Christ, is my path¬ 
way from hell to.heaven. 1 am not a saint. 
1 shall never be a saint. Christ is the only 
Saint, the Holy One of God; and he has 
borne my sins, and he is my righteousness. 
He has done it all; and J have nothing left 
but to give him all the glory, and to love, to 
love, to love him to all eternity. And I will 
do it.” she added fervently, “poor, proud, 
destitute, and sinful creature that 1 am. I 
cannot help it; 1 must.” 

But strong and stern as the words were, 
how changed Aunt Agnes’s manner ! — 
humble and simple as a child’s. And as she 
left me for some duty in the house, she 
kissed my forehead, and said, “ Ah, child, 
love me a little, if you can,—not as a saint, 
but as a poor, sinful old woman, who among 
her worst sins has counted loving thee too 
much, which was perhaps, after all, among 
the least; love me a little, Eva, for my sis¬ 
ter’s sake, whom you love so much.” 


ELSE’S STORY. 

August , 1517. 

Yes, our little Gretchen is certainly a re¬ 
markable child. Although she is not yet 
two years old, she knows all of us by name. 
She tyrannizes over us all, except me. I 
deny her many things which she cries for* 
except when Gottfried is present, who, un¬ 
fortunately, cannot bear to see her unhappy 
for a moment, and having (he says) had his 
temper spoilt in infancy by a cross nurse, 
has no notion of infant education, except 
to avoid contradiction. Christopher, who 
always professed a supreme contempt for 
babies, gives herrides on his shoulder in the 
most submissive manner. But best of all. I 
love to see her sitting on my blind father’s 
knee, and stroking his face with a kind of 







r/LSE S 32 JllY. 


101 


tender, pitiful reverence, as it she felt there 
was something missing there. 

1 have taught her, too, to say Fritz’s 
name, when I show her the little lock 1 
wear of his hair; and to kiss Eva’s picture. 

I cannot bear that they should be as lost or 
dead to her. Hut I am afraid she is per¬ 
plexed between Eva’s portrait and the pic¬ 
ture of the Hoiy Virgin, which 1 teach her 
to bow and cross her forehead before; be¬ 
cause sometimes she tries to kiss the picture 
of Our Lady, and to twist her little liugei’3 
into the sacred sign before Eva’s likeness. 
However, by-and-by she will distinguish 
better. And are not Eva and Fritz indeed 
our family saints and patrons ? I do believe 
their prayers bring down blessings on us all. 

For our family has been so much blessed 
lately ! The dear mother’s face looks so 
[ bright, and has regained something of its 
i old sweet likeness to the Mother of Mercy. 
And I am so happy, so brimful of happiness. 
Aud it certainly does make me feel more re¬ 
ligious than I did. 

Not the home-happiness only, I mean, 
but that best blessing of all, that came first, 
before I knew that Gottfried cared for me,— 
the knowledge of the love of God to me,— 
that best riches of all, without which all our 
riches would be mere cares—the riches of 
the treasury of God freely opened to us in 
Christ Jesus our Lord. 

Gottfried is better than I ever thought he 
was. Perhaps he really grows better every 
| year; certainly he seems better and dearer 
I to me. 

Chriemhild and Ulrich are to be married 
! very soon. He is gone now to see Franz 
von Siekingen, and his other relations in the 
Rhineland, and to make arrangements con¬ 
nected with his marriage. Last year 
Chriemhild and Atlantis stayed some weeks 
at the old castle in the Thuringen forest, 
near Eisenach. A wild life it seemed to be, 
from their description, deep in the heart of 
the forest, in a lonely fortress on a rock, 
with only a few peasants’huts in sight; and 
with all kinds of strange legends of demon 
huntsmen, and elves, and sprites haunting 
the neighborhood. To me it seems almost 
as desolate as the wilderness where John 
the Baptist lived on locusts and wild honey; 
but Chriemhild thought it delightful. She 
ma le acquaintance with some of the poor 
peasants, and they seemed to think her an 
angel,—an opinion (Atlantissays) shared by 
Ulrich’s old uncle and aunt, to say nothin ? 


of Ulrich himself. At first the aged Aunt 
Hermentrude was rather distant; but on 
the Schonberg pedigree having been duly 
tested and approved, the old lady at length 
considered herself free to give vent to her 
feelings, whilst the old knight courteously 
protested that he had always seen Chriem- 
liield’s pedigree in her face. 

And Ulrich says there is one great advan¬ 
tage in the solitude and strength of his 
castle,—he could offer an asylum at any 
time to Dr. Luther, who has of late become 
an object of bitter hatred to some of the 
priests. 

Dr. Luther is most kind to our little 
Gretchen, whom he baptized. He says 
little children often understand God better 
than the wisest doctors of divinity. 

Thekla has experienced her first sorrow. 
Her poor little foundling, Nix, is dead. 
For some days the poor creature had been 
ailing, and at last he lay for some hours 
quivering, as if with inward convulsions; 
yet at Thekla’s voice the dull, glassy eyes 
would brighten, and he would wag his tail 
feebly as he lay on his side. At last he 
died; and Thekla was not to be comforted, 
but sat apart and shed bitter tears. The 
only thing which cheered her was Christo¬ 
pher’s making a grave in the garden for 
Nix, under the pear tree where I used to 
sit at embroidery in summer, as now she 
does. It was of no use to try to laugh her 
out of her distress. Her lip quivered and 
her eyes filled with tears if any one at¬ 
tempted it. Atlantis spoke seriously to her 
on the duty of a little girl of twelve begin¬ 
ning to put away childish things; and even 
the gentle mother tenderly remonstrated, 
and "said one day, when Dr. Luther had 
asked her for her favorite, and had been 
answered by a burst of tears, “ My child, if 
you mourn so for a dog, what will you do 
when real sorrows come ? ” 

But Dr. Luther seemed to understand 
Thekla better than any of us, and to take 
her part. He said she was a child, and her 
childish sorrows were no more trifles to her 
than our sorrows are to us; that from 
heaven we might probably look on the fall 
of an empire as of less moment than we now 
thought the death of Thekla’s dog; yet 
that the angels who look down on us from 
heaven do not despise our little joys and 
sorrows, nor should we those of the little 
ones; or words to this effect. He has a 
strange sympathy with the hearts of chil- 





102 


THE SOIIONB ERG-COTTA FAMILY. 


dren. Thekla was so neouraged by liis 
compassion that she crept close to him and 
laid her hand in his, and said, with a look 
of wistful earnestness, “ Will Nix rise again 
at the last day? Will there be dogs in the 
other world ? ” 

Many of us were appalled at such an 
irreverent idea; but Dr. Luther did not 
seem to think it irreverent. He said, “ We 
know less of what that other world Will be 
than this little one, or than that babe,” he 
added, pointing to my little Gretchen, 
“knows of the empires or powers of this 
world. But of this we are sure, the world 
to come will be no empty, lifeless waste. 
See how full and beautiful the Lord God 
has made all things in this passing, perish¬ 
ing world of heaven and earth ! How much 
moie beautiful, then, will he make that 
eternal, incorruptible world! God will 
make new heavens and a new earth. All 
poisonous, and malicious, and hurtful crea¬ 
tures will be banished thence,—all that our 
sin has ruined. All creatures will not only 
be harmless, but lovely, and pleasant, and 
joyful, so that we might play with them, 

‘ The sucking child shall play on the hole of 
the asp, and the weaned child shall put his 
hand on the cockatrice’s den.’ Why, then, 
should there not be little dogs in the new 
earth, whose skin might be fair as gold, and 
their hair as bright as precious stones ? ” 

Certainly, in Thekla’s eyes, from that 
moment there has been no doctor of divinity 
like Dr. Luther. 

Torcatt. November 10,1516. 

The plague is at Wittenberg. We have 
all taken refuge here. The University is 
scattered, and many, also, of the Augustin- 
ian monks. 

Dr. Luther remains in the convent at 
Wittenberg. We have seen a copy of a 
letter of his, dated the 26th October, and 
addressed to the Venerable Father John 
Lange, Prior of Erfurt Monastery. 

“Health. 1 have need of two secretaries or 
chancellors, since all day long I do nothing 
but write letters; and I know not whether, 
always writing, 1 may not sometimes repeat 
the same things. Thou wilt see. 

“ I am convent lecturer; reader at meals; 
I am desired to be daily parish preacher; I 
am director of studies, vicar (i. e. prior 
eleven times over), inspector of the fish¬ 
ponds at Litzkau, advocate of the cause of 
the people of Herzberg at Torgau, lecturer 
on Paul and on the Psalms; besides what 1 


have said already of my constant com.*- I 1 
spondence. I have rarely time to recite my 
Canonical Hours, to say nothing of my own 
particular temptations from the world, the ' 
flesh, and the devil. See what a man of 
leisure I am I 

“ Concerning Brother John Metzel I be- i 
lieve you have already received my opinion. 

I will see, however, what 1 can do. How 
can you think I can And room for your 
Sardanapaluses and Sybarites? If you 
have educated them ill, you must bear with 
those you have educated ill. I have enough 
useless brethren;—if, indeed, any are use¬ 
less to a patient heart. I am persuaded 
that the useless may become more useful ,[ 
than those who are the most useful now. 
Therefore bear with them for the time. 

“ 1 think I have already written to you 
about the brethren you sent me. Some I 
have sent to Magister Spangenburg, as they ) 
requested, to save their breathing this pes- I 
tilential air. With two from Cologne I felt 
such sympathy, and thought so much of 
their abilities, that I have retained them, 
although at much expense. Twenty-two | 
priests, forty-two youths, and in the Uni- 1 
versity altogether forty-two persons are 9 
supported out of our poverty. But the 
Lord will provide. 

“You say that yesterday you began to 
lecture on the Sentences. To-morrow I be¬ 
gin the Epistle to the Galatians; although I 
fear that, with the plague among us as it is, 

! I shall not be able to continue. The plague 
has taken away already two or three among 
us, but not all in one day; and the son of 
our neighbor Faber, yesterday in health, ; 
to-day is dead; and another is infected! 
What shall I say ? It is indeed here, and 
begins to rage with great cruelty and sud- ! 
denness, especially among the young. You 
would persuade me and Master Bartholo¬ 
mew to take refuge with you. Why should 
I flee ? 1 hope the world would not collapse 
if Brother Martin fell. If the pestilence 
spreads, I will indeed disperse the monks 
throughout the land. As for me, I have 
been placed here. My obedience as a monk 
does not suffer me to fly; since what obedi¬ 
ence required once, it demands still. Not 
that I do not fear death—(1 am not the 
Apostle Paul, but only the reader of the 
Apostle Paul)—but I hope the Lord will 
deliver me from my fear. 

•Farewell;, and be mindful of us in this 








JSLSS'S STORY. 


103 


day of the visitation of the Lord, to whom 
be glory.” 

This leiter lias strengthened me and 
many. ¥es, if it had been our duty, 1 
trust, like Dr. Luther, we should have had 
courage to remain. The courage of his act 
strengthens us; and also the confession of 
fear in his words. It does not seem a fear 
which hath torment, or which fetters his 
spirit. It does not even crush his cheerful¬ 
ness. It is a natural fear of dying, Which I 
also cannot overcome. From me, then, as 
surely from him, when God sees it time to 
die, He will doubtless remove the dread of 
death. 

This season of the pestilence recalls so 
much to me of what happened when the 
plague last visited us at Eisenach! 

We have lost some since then,—if I ought 
to call Eva and Fritz lost. But how my 
life has been enriched! My husband, our 
little Gretchen; and then so much outward 
prosperity! All that pressure of poverty 
and daily care entirety gone, and so much 
wherewith to help others! And yet, am I 
so entirety free from care as 1 ought to be? 
Am I not even at times more burdened 
with it ? 

When first I married, and had Gottfried 
on whom to unburden every perplexity, and 
riches which seemed to me inexhaustible, 
instead of poverty, 1 thought I should never 
know care again. 

But is it so ? Have not the very things 
themselves, in their possession, become 
cares ? When I hear of these dreadful wars 
with the Turks, and of the insurrections 
and disquiets in various parts, and look 
round on our pleasant home, and gardens, 
and fields, I think how terrible it would be 
again to be plunged into poverty, or that 
Gretchen ever should be; so that riches 
themselves become cares. It makes me 
think of what a good man once told me: 
that the word in the Bible which is translated 
“rich,” in speaking of Abraham, in other 
places is translated “heavy;” so that instead 
of reading, “Abraham left Egypt rich in 
cattle, and silver and gold,” we might read 
“ heavy in cattle, silver and gold.” 

Yes, we are on a pilgrimage to the Holy 
City; we are in flight from an evil world; 
and too often riches are weights which hin¬ 
der our progress. 

I And it good, therefore, to be here in the 
small, humble house we have taken refuge 
in—Gottfried, Gretchen, and I. The serv¬ 


ants are dispersed elsewhere; and it light¬ 
ens my heart to feel how well we can do 
without luxuries which were beginning to 
seem like necessaries. Doctor Luther’s 
words came to my mind: “The covetous 
enjoy what they have as little as what they 
have not. They cannot even rejoice in the 
sunshine. They think not what a noble gift 
the light is—what an inexpressibly great 
treasure the sun is, which shines freely on 
all the world.” 

Yes, God’s common gifts are his most 
precious; and his most precious gifts—even 
lifeltself—have no root in themselves. Not 
that they are without root; they are better 
rooted in the depths of His unchangeable 
love. 

It is well to be taught, by such a visitation 
even as this pestilence, the utter insecurity 
of everything here. “ If the ship itself,” 
as Gottfried says, “ is exposed to shipwreck, 
who, then, can secure the cargo? Hence¬ 
forth let me be content with the only secu¬ 
rity Dr. Luther says God will give us,—the 
security of his presence and care—“7 will 
never leave thee. ’ ’ 

Wittenberg, June , 1517. 

We are at home once more; and, thank 
God, our two households are undiminished, 
save by one death—that of our youngest 
sister, the baby when we left Eisenach. 
The professors and students also have re¬ 
turned Dr. Luther, who remained here 
all the time, is preaching with more force 
and clearness. 

The town is greatly divided in opinion 
about him. Dr. Tetzel, the great Papal 
Commissioner for the sale of indulgences, 
has established his red cross, announcing 
the sale of pardons, for some months, at 
Jiiterbok and Zerbst, not far from Witten¬ 
berg. 

Numbers of the townspeople, alarmed, I 
suppose, by the pestilence, into anxiety 
about their souls, nave repaired to Dr. 
Tetzel, and returned with the purchased 
tickets of indulgence. 

I have always been perplexed as to what 
the indulgences really give. Christopher 
has terrible stories about the money paid 
for them being spent by Dr. Tetzel and 
others on taverns and feasts; and Gottfried 
says, “ It is a bargain between the priests, 
who love money, and the people, who love 
sin.” 

Yesterday morning T saw one of the let¬ 
ters of indulgence for the first time. A 







104 


THE SC IION DERG-O''TTA FAMILY. 


neighbor of ours, the wife of a miller, 
whose weights have been a little suspected 
in the town, was in a state of great indigna¬ 
tion when 1 went to purchase some flour of 
her, 

‘‘See!” she said; “this Dr. Luther will 
be wiser than the Pope himself. He has 
refused to admit my husband to the Holy 
Sacrament unless he repents and confesses 
to him, although he took his certificate in 
his hand.” 

Slie gave it to me, and I read it. Cer¬ 
tainly, if the doctors of divinity disagree 
about the value of these indulgences, Dr. 
Tetzel has no ambiguity nor uncertainty in 
his language. 

“ I,” says the letter, “ absolve thee from 
all the excesses, sins, and crimes which thou 
hast committed, however great and enorm- 
mous they may be. I remit for thee the 
pains thou mightest have had to endure in 
purgatory. 1 restore thee to participation 
in "the sacraments. I incorporate thee 
afresh into the communion of the Church. 
1 re-establish thee in the innocence and 
purity in which thou wast at the time of 
thy baptism. So that, at the moment of 
thy death, the gate by which souls pass into 
the place of torments will be shut upon thee; 
while, on the contrary, that which leads to 
the paradise of joy will be open unto thee. 
And if thou art not called on to die soon, 
this grace will remain unaltered for the 
time of thy latter end. 

“ In the name of the Father, and of the 
Son, and of the Holy Ghost. 

“ Friar John Tetzel, Commissary, 
has signed it with his own hand.” 

“ To think,” said my neighbor, “ of the 
pope promising my Franz admittance into 
paradise; and Dr. Luther will not even 
admit him to the altar of the parish church ? 
And after spending such a sum on it! for 
the friar must surely have thought my hus¬ 
band better off than he is, or he would not 
have demanded gold of poor struggling 
people like us.” 

“ But if the angels at the gate of para¬ 
dise should be of the same mind as Dr. 
Luther?” I suggested, “ Would it not be 
better to find that out here than there ?” 

“It is impossible,” she replied; “have 
we not the Holy father’s own word ? and 
did we not pay a whole golden florin ? It 
is impossible it can be in vain.” 

“Put the next florin in your scales instead 


of in Dr. Tetzel’s chest, neighbor,” said a 
student, laughing, as he heard her loud and 
angry words; “ it may weigh heavier with 
your flour than against your sins.” 

I left them to finish the discussion, 

Gottfried says it is quite true that Dr. 
Luther in the confessional in the city 
churches has earnestly protested to many of 
his penitents against their trusting to the e . 
certificates, and has positively refused to suf¬ 
fer any to communicate, except on their con- !i 
fessing their sins, and promising to forsake 
them, whether provided with indulgences j 
or not. 

In his sermon to the people last year on 
the 'Sen Commandments, he told them for- ■ 
giveness was freely given to the penitent by : 
God, and was not to be purchased at any 
price, least of all with money. 


Wittenberg, July 18. 

The whole town is in a ferment to-day, 
on account of Dr. Luther’s sermon yester¬ 
day, preached before the Elector in the 
Castle church. 

The congregation was very large, com¬ 
posed of the court, students, and towns¬ 
people. 

Not a child or ignorant peasant there but 
could understand the preacher’s words. The 
Elector had procured especial indulgences 
from the pope in aid of his church, but Dr. 
Luther made no exception to conciliate him. 
He said the Holy Scriptures nowhere de¬ 
mand of us any penalty or satisfaction for 
our sins. God gives and forgives freely and 
without price, out of his unutterable grace; 
and lays on the forgiven no other duty than 
true repentance and sincere conversion of 
the heart, resolution to bear the cross of 
Christ, and do all the good we can. He de- \ 
dared also that it would be better to give 
money freely towards the building of St. 
Peter’s Church at Rome, than to bargain 
with alms for indulgences; that it was more 
pleasing to God to give to the poor, than to 
buy these letters, which, he said, would at 
the utmost do nothing more for any man 
than remit mere ecclesiastical penances. 

As we returned from the church together, 
Gottfried said,— 

“The battle-cry is sounded then at last! 
The wolf has assailed Dr. Luther’s own 
flock,and the shepherd is routed. The battle- 
cry is sounded, Else, but the battle is 
scarcely begun.” 

And when we described the sermon to our 
grandmother, she murmured,— 


- 








ELSE'S STORY. 


105 


“ It sounds to me, children, like an old 
story of my childhood. Have I not heard 
such words half a century since in Bohemia? 
and have I not seen the lips which spoke 
them silenced in flames and blood? Neither 
Dr. Luther nor any of you know whither 
you are going. Thank God, I am soon 
going to him who died for speaking just 
such words ! Thank God I hear them again 
before I die ! I have doubted long about 
them and about every thing; how could T 
dare to think a few proscribed men right 
against the whole Church ? But since, these 
old words cannot be hushed, but rise from 
the dead again, I think there must be life in 
them; eternal life. Children,” she conclud¬ 
ed, “tell me when Dr. Luther preaches 
'again; I will hear him before I die^tliat I 
may tell your grandfather, when I meet 
him, the old truth is not dead. 1 think it 
would give him another joy, even before the 
throne of God.” 

Wittenberg. August. 

Christopher has returned from Jiiterbok. 
He saw there a great pile of burning fag¬ 
gots, which Dr. Tetzel has caused to be 
kindled in the market-place “to burn the 
heretics,” he said. 

We laughed as he related this, and also at 
the furious threats and curses which had 
been launched at Dr. Luther from the pul¬ 
pit in front of the iron money-chest. But 
our grandmother said, “ It is no jest, chil¬ 
dren, they have done it, and they will do it 
again yet!” *■ 


XIII. 

ELSE’S STORY. 

Wittenberg, Nov. 1,1517. 

Aia, Saints’ Day. 

Yesterday evening, as I sat at the win¬ 
dow with Gottfried in the late twilight, 
hushing Gretchen to sleep, we noticed Dr. 
Luther walk rapidly along the street towards 
the Castle church. His' step was firm and 
quick, and he seemed too full of thought to 
observe anything as he passed. There was 
"something unusual in his bearing, which 
made my husband call my attention to him. 
Ilis head was erect and slightly thrown 
back, as when he preaches. He had a large 
packet of papers in his hand, and although 
he was evidently absorbed with some pur¬ 
pose, he had more the air of a general 


moving to a battle-field than of a theologian 
buried in meditation. 

This morning as he went to the early 
mass of the festival, we saw a great crowd 
gathered around the doors of the Castle 
church; not a mob, however, but an eager 
throng of well-dressed men, professors, 
citizens, and students; those within the 
circle reading some writing which was 
posted on the door, whilst around, the 
crowd was broken into little knots, in eager 
but not loud debate. 

Gottfried asked what had happened. 

“ It is only some Latin theses against the 
indulgences, by Dr. Luther,” replied one 
of the students, “ inviting a disputation on 
the subject.” 

I was relieved to hear that nothing was 
the matter, and Gottfried and I quietly 
proceeded to the service. 

“ It is only an affair of the University,” 
I said. “ I was afraid it was some national 
disaster, an invasion of the Turks, or some 
event in the Elector’s family.” 

As we returned, however, the crowd had 
increased, and the debate seemed to be be¬ 
coming warm among some of them. One 
of the students was translating the Latin into 
German for the benefit of fhe unlearned, 
and we paused to listen. 

What he read seemed to me very true, 
but not at all remarkable. We had often 
heard Dr. Luther say and even preach 
similar things. At the moment we came up 
the words the student was reading were,— 

“ It is a great error for one to tlffnk to 
make satisfaction for his sins, in that God 
always forgives gratuitously and from his 
boundless grace, requiring nothing in return 
but holy living.” 

This sentence I remember distinctly, 
because it was so much like what we had 
heard him preach. Other propositions fol¬ 
lowed, such as that it was very doubtful if 
the indulgences could deliver souls from 
purgatory, and that it was better to give 
alms than to buy indulgences. But why 
these statements should collect such a crowd, 
and excite such intense interest, 1 could not 
quite understand, unless it was because 
they were in Latin. 

One sentence, I observed' aroused very 
mingled feelings in the crowd. It was the 
declaration that the Hoi}'- Scriptures alone 
could settle any controversy, and that all 
the scholastic teachers together could not 
give authority to one doctrine. 






106 


TEE sell ONE ERG-COTTA FAMILY . 


The students anti many of the citizens 
received this announcement with enthusi¬ 
astic applause, and some of the professors 
testified a quiet approval of it; but others of 
the doctr.-o shook their heads, and a few 
retired at once, murmuring angrily as they 
went. 

At the close came a declaration by Dr, 
Luther, that whatever some unenlightened 
and morbid people might say, he was no 
heretic. 

“ Why should Dr. Luther think it neces¬ 
sary to conclude with a declaration that lie 
is no heretic ?” I said to Gottfried as we 
walked home. “Can anything be more 
full of respect for the Pope and the Church 
than many of these theses are ? And why 
should they excite so much attention ? Dr. 
Luther says no more than so many of us 
think !” 

“True. Else,” replied Gottfried, gravely; 
“but to know how to say what other 
peoplcTmly think, is what makes men poets 
and sages; and to dare to say what others 
only dare to think, makes men martyrs 
or reformers, or both.” 

November 20. 

It is wonderful the stir these theses make. 
Christopher cannot get them printed fast 
enough. Both the Latin and German 
printing-presses are engaged, for they have 
been translated, and demands come for 
them from every part of Germany. 

Dr, Tetzel, they say, is furious, and 
many of the prelates are uneasy as to the 
result; the new bishop has dissuaded Dr. 
Luther from publishing an explanation of 
them. It is reported that the Elector 
Frederic is not quite pleased, fearing the 
effect on the new University, still in its 
infancy. 

Students, however, are crowding to the 
town, and to Dr. Luthers lectures, more 
than ever. He is the hero of the youth 
of Germany. 

But none are more enthusiastic about him 
than our grandmother. She insisted on be¬ 
ing taken to church on All Saints’ Day, and 
tottering up the aisle took her place im¬ 
mediately under Dr Luther’s pulpit, facing 
the congregation. 

She had eyes or ears for none but him. 
When he came down the pulpit stairs she 
grasped his hand, and falter d out a broken 
blessing. And after she came home she sat 
a long time in silence, occasionally brushing 
away tears. 


When Gottfried and I took leave for the 
night, she held one of our hands in each of 
hers, and said,— 

“ Children 1 be braver than 1 have been; 
that man preaches the truth for which my 
husband died. God sends him to you. Be 
faithful to him. Take heed that you for¬ 
sake him not. It is not given to every one 
as to me to have the light they forsook in 
youth restored to them in old age. To me 
his words are like voices from the dead. 
They are worth dying for.” 

My mother is not so satisfied. She likes 
what Dr. Luther says, but she is afraid 
what Aunt Agnes might think of it. She 
thinks he speaks too violently sometimes. 
She does not like any one to be pained- 
She cannot herself much like the way they^ 
sell indulgences, but she hopes Dr. Tetzel 
means well, and she has no doubt that the 
Pope knows best; and she is convinced 
that in their hearts all good people mean 
the same, only she is afraid, in the heat of 
discussion, every one will go further than 
any one intends, and so there will be a 
great deal of bad feeling. She thought it 
was quite right of Dr. Luther quietly ta 
admonish any of his penitents who were 
imagining they could be saved without re¬ 
pentance; but why he should excite all the 
town in this way by these theses she could 
not understand; especially on All Saints r 
Dajr, when so many strangers came from 
the country, and the holy relics were ex¬ 
hibited^ and every one ought to be absorbed 
with their devotions. 

“ Ah, little mother,” said my father, 
“ women are too tender-hearted for plough¬ 
men’s work. You could never bear to 
break up the clods, and tear up all the 
pretty wild flowers. But when the harvest 
comes we will set you to bind up the 
sheaves, or to glean beside the reapers. 
]No rough hands of men will do that so well 
as yours.” 

And Gottfried said his vow as doctor of 
divinity makes it as much Dr. Luther’s 
plain duty to teach true divinity, as his 
priestly vows oblige him to guard his flock 
from error and sin. Gottfried says we have 
fallen on stormy times. For him that may 
be best, and by his side all is well for me. 
Besides, I am accustomed to rough paths. 
But when I look on our little tender 
Gretchen, as her dimpled cheek rests 
flushed with sleep on her pillow, I cannot 







ELSE', S’ STORY. 


107 


Help wishing the battle might not begin in 
her time* 

Dr. Luther counted the cost before he 
affixed these theses to the church door. It 
was this which made him do it so secretly, 
without consulting any of his friends. He 
knew there was risk in it, and he nobly re¬ 
solved not to involve any one else—Elector, 
professor, or pastor—in the danger he in¬ 
curred without hesitation for himself. 

October , 1517. 

Ill one thing we are all agreed, and that 
is in our delight in Dr. Luther’s lectures on 
St. Paul’s Epistle to the Galatians. Gott¬ 
fried heard them and took notes, and re¬ 
ported them to us in my father’s house. 
We gather around him, all of us, in the 
winter evenings, while he reads those in¬ 
spiring words to us. Never, I think, were 
words like them. Yesterday he was read¬ 
ing to us, for the twentieth time, when Dr. 
Luther said on the words, “ Who loved me, 
and <^ave himself for me.” 

“ Head with vehemency,” he saj r s, “ those 
words ‘ me,’ and ‘ for me.’ Print this ‘ me’ 
in thy heart, not doubting that thou art of 
the number to whom this 4 me’ belongeth; 
also, that Christ hath not only loved Peter 
and Paul, and given himself for them, 
but that the same grace also which is com¬ 
prehended in this ‘me,’ as well pertaineth 
and cometh unto us as unto them. For as 
we cannot deny that we are all sinners, ail 
lost; so we cannot deny that Christ died for 
our sins. Therefore when I feel and con¬ 
fess myself to be a sinner, why should I 
not say that I am made righteous through 
the righteousness of Christ, especially when 
I hear He loved me and gave himself for 
me.” 

And then my mother asked for the pas¬ 
sages she most delights in: “ Oh Christ, I 
am thy sin, thy curse, thy wrath of God, 
thy hell; and contrariwise, thou art my 
righteousness, my blessing, my life, my 
grace of God, my heaven.” 

And again, when he speaks of Christ be¬ 
ing “ made a curse for us, the unspotted 
and undeffied Lamb of God wrapped in 
our sins, God not laying our sins upon us, 
but upon his Son, that lie, bearing the pun¬ 
ishment thereof, might be our peace, that 
by his stripes we might be healed.” 

And again:— 

“Sin is a mighty conqueror, which de- 
voureth all mankind, learned and un¬ 
learned, holy, wise, and mighty men. This 


tyrant flieth upon Christ, and will needs 
swallow him up as he doth all other. But 
he seeth not that Christ is a person of in- 
invincible and everlasting righteousness. 
Therefore in this combat sin must needs be 
vanquished and killed; and righteousness 
must overcome, live, and reign. So in 
Christ all sin is vanquished, killed, and 
buried; and righteousness remaineth a con¬ 
queror, and reignetli for ever. 

“ In like manner Death, which is an om¬ 
nipotent queen and empress of the whole 
world, Killing kings, princes, and all men, 
doth mightily encounter with Life, thinking 
utterly to overcome it and to swallow it up. 
But because the Life was immortal, therefore 
when it was overcome, it nevertheless over¬ 
came, vanquishing and killing Death. 
Death, therefore, through Christ, is van¬ 
quished and abolished, so that now it is but 
a painted death, which, robbed of its sting, 
can no more hurt those that believe in 
Christ, who is become the death of Death. 

“ So the curse hath the like conflict with 
the blessing, and would condemn and bring 
it to nought; but it cannot. For the bless¬ 
ing is divine and everlasting, therefore the 
curse must nee^ls give place. For if the 
blessing in Christ could be overcome, then 
would God himself be overcome. But this 
is impossible; therefore Christ, the power 
of God, righteousness; blesssing, grace, and 
life, overcometh and destroyeth those mon¬ 
sters, sin, death, and the curse, without war 
and weapons, in this our body, so that they 
can no more hurt those that believe.” 

Such truths are indeed worth battling for; 
but who, save the devil, would war against 
them ? I wonder what Fritz would think 
of it all ? 

Wittenberg, February, 1518. 

Christopher returned yesterday evening 
from the market-place, where the students 
have been burning Tetzel’s theses, which 
he wrote in answer to Dr. Luther’s. Tetzel 
hides behind the papal authority, and ac¬ 
cuses Dr. Luther of assailing the Holy 
Father himself. 

But Dr. Luther says nothing shall ever 
make him a heretic; that he will recognize 
the voice of the Pope as the voice of Christ 
himself. The students kindled this confla¬ 
gration in the market-place entirely on their 
own responsibility. They are full of enthu¬ 
siasm for Dr. Martin, and of indignation 
against Tetzel and the Dominicans. 

“ Who can doubt,” said Christopher, 







108 


THE SCIIONBERG-COTTA FAMILY , 


“how the conflict will end, between all 
learning and honesty and truth on the one 
side, and a few contemptible avaricious 
monks on the other ? ” And lie proceeded 
to describe to us the conflagration and the 
sayings of the students with as much exul¬ 
tation as if it had been a victory over Tetzel 
and the indulgence-mongers themselves. 

“ But it seems to me,” I said* “ that Dr. 
Luther is not so much at ease about it as 
you are. I have noticed latety that he looks 
grave, and at times very sad. He does not 
seem to think the victory won.” 

‘•Young soldiers,” said Gottfried, “on 
the eve of their first battle may be as blithe 
as on the eve of a tournay. Veterans are 
grave before the battle. Their courage 
comes with, the conflict. It will be thus, I 
believe, with Dr. Luther. For surely the 
battle is coining. Already some of his old 
friends fall off. They say the censor at 
Rome, Prierias, has condemned and written 
against his theses.” 

“ But,” rejoined Christopher, “ they say 
also that Pope Leo praised Dr. Luther’s 
genius, and said it was only the envy of 
the monks which found fault with him. 
Dr. Luther believes the Pope only needs to 
learn the truth about thbse indulgence- 
mongers to disown them at once.” 

“ llonest men believe, all men honest until 
they are proved dishonest,” said Gottfried 
drily; “ but the Roman court is expensive 
and the indulgences are profitable.” 

This morning our grandmother asked 
nervously what was the meaning of the 
shouting she had heard yesterday in the 
market-place, and the glare of fire she had 
seen, and the crackling? 

“ Only Tetzel’s lying theses,” said Chris¬ 
topher. She seemed relieved. 

“In my early days,” she said, “ I learned 
to listen too eagerl} r to sounds like that. 
But in those times they burned other things 
than books or papers in the market places. 

“Tetzel threatens to do so again,” said 
Christopher. 

“No doubt they will, if they can,” she 
replied, and relapsed into silence. 


FRITZ’S STORY. 


Augustinian Convent, Mainz. 

November , 1517. 

Seven years have passed since I have 
written anything in this old chronicle of 
mine, and as in the quiet of this convent 


once more I open it, the ink on the first 
pages is already brown with time; yet a 
strange familiar fragrance breathes from 
them, as of early spring flowers. My child¬ 
hood comes back to me, with all its devout 
simplicity; my youth, with all its rich pros¬ 
pects and its buoyant, ardent hopes. My 
childhood seems like one of those green 
quiet valleys in my native forests, like the 
valley of my native Eisenach itself, when 
that one reach of the forest, and that one 
quiet town with its spires and church 
bells, and that one lowly home with its love, 
its cares, and its twilight talks in the lum¬ 
ber-room, were all the world I could see. 

Youth rises before me like that first jour- 
uey through the forest to the University of 
Erfurt, when the world opened to me like 
the plains from the breezy heights, a battle¬ 
field for glorious achievement, an un¬ 
bounded ocean for adventure and discovery, 
a vast field for noble work. 

Then came another brief interval, when 
once again the lowly home at Eisenach 
became to me dearer and more than all the 
wide world beside, and all earth and all life 
seemed to grow sacred and to expand be¬ 
fore me in the light of one pure, holy, lov¬ 
ing maiden’s heart. I have seen nothing so 
heaven-like since as she was. But then 
came the great crash which wrenched my 
life in twain, and made home and the 
world alike forbidden ground to me. 

At first, after that, for years I dared not 
think of Eva. But since my pilgrimage to 
Rome, I venture to cherish her memory 
again. I thank God every day that nothing 
can erase that image of purity and love 
from my heart. Had it not been for that 
and for the recollection of Dr. Luther’s 
manly* honest piety, there are times whpn 
the very existence of truth and holiness on 
earth would have seemed inconceivable 
such a chaos of corruption has the world 
appeared to me. 

How often has the little lowly hearth-fire 
glowing from the windows of the old home’ 
saved me from shipwreck, when “for many 
days neither sun nor stars appeared, and no 
small tempest lay on me.” 

For I have lived during these years behind 
the veil of outward shows, a poor insignifi¬ 
cant monk, before whom none thought it 
worth while to inconvenience themselves 
with masks or disguises. I have spent hour 
after hour, moreover, in the confessional T 
have been in the sacristy before the mass 










109 


FRITZ'S STORY. 


and at the cohycnt feast after it. And I 
have spent months once and again at the 
heart of Christendom, in Rome itself, where 
the indulgences which are now stirring up 
all Germany are manufactured, and where 
the money gained by the indulgences is 
spent; not entirely on the building of St. 
Peter’s or in holy wars against the Turks ! 

Thank God that a voice is raised at last 
against this crying, monstrous lie, the honest 
voice of Dr. Luther. It is ringing through 
all the land. I have just returned from a 
mission through Germany, and 1 had oppor¬ 
tunities of observing the effect of the theses. 

The first time 1 heard of them was from 
a sermon in a church of the Dominicans in 
Bavaria. 

The preacher spoke of Dr. Luther by 
name, and reviled the theses as directly in¬ 
spired by the devil, declaring that their 
wretched author would have a place in hell 
lower than all the heretics from Simon 
Magus downward. 

The congregation were roused, and spoke 
of it as they dispersed. Some piously 
wondered who this new heretic could be 
who was worse even than lluss. Others 
speculated what this new poisonous doctrine 
could be; and a great many bought a copy 
of the theses to see. 

In the Augustiuian convent that evening 
they formed the subject of warm debate. 
Not a few of the monks triumphed in them 
as an effective blow for Tetzel and the 
Dominicians. A few rejoiced and s.dd these 
were the words they had been longing to 
hear for years. Many expressed wonder 
that people should make so much stir about 
them, since they said nothing more than all 
honest men in the land had always thought. 

A few nights afterwards I lodged at the 
house of Ruprecht Haller, a priest in a 
Franconian village. A woman of quiet and 
modest appearance, young in form but worn 
and old in expression, with a subdued, 
broken-spirited bearing, was preparing our 
supper, and whilst she was serving the table 
I began to speak to the priest about the 
theses of Dr. Luther. 

He motioned to me to keep silence, and 
hastily turned the conversation. 

When we were left alone he explained 
his reasons. “ I gave her the money for an 
indulgence letter last week, and she pur¬ 
chased one from one of Dr. Tetzels com¬ 
pany,” he said; “ and when she ret 
her heart seemed lighter than I h.u see . 


it for years, since God smote us for our 
sins, and little Dietrich died. I would not 
have her robbed of that little bit of comfort 
for the world, be it true or false.” 

Theirs was a sad story, common enough 
in every town and village as regarded the 
sin, and only uncommon as to the longing 
for better things which yet lingered in the 
hearts of the guilty. 

I suggested her returning to her kindred 
or entering a convent. 

“ She has no kindred left that would re¬ 
ceive her,” he said; “and to send her to be 
scorned and disciplined by a community of 
nuns—never!” 

“ But her soul!” I said, “ and yours ?” 

“The blessed Lord received such,” he 
answered almost fiercely, “ before the Phari¬ 
sees.” 

“ Such received him!” I said quietly, •• but 
receiving him they went and sinned no 
more.” 

“ And when did God ever say it was sin 
for a priest to marry ?” he asked; “ not in the 
Old Testament, for the son of Elkanah the 
priest and Hannah ministered before the 
Lord in the temple, as perhaps our little Diet- 
rich,” he added in a low tone, “ministers be¬ 
fore Him in his temple now. And where 
in the New Testament do you find it for¬ 
bidden ?” 

“ The Church forbids it,” I said. 

“Since when?” he asked. “The subject 
is too near my heart for me not to have 
searched to see ? And five hundred years 
ago, I have read, before the days of Hilde¬ 
brand the pope, many a village pastor had 
his lawful wife, whom he loved«as 1 love 
Bertha; for God knows neither she nor I 
ever loved another.” 

“Does this satisfy her conscience?” I 
asked. 

“ Sometimes,” he replied bitterly, “but 
onty sometimes. Oftener she lives as one 
under a curse, afraid to receive any good 
thing, and bowing to every sorrow as her 
bitter desert, and the foretaste of the terrible 
retribution to come.” 

“ Whatever is not of faith is sin,” I mur¬ 
mured. 

“ But what will be the portion of those 
who call what God sanctions sin,” he said, 
“and bring trouble and pollution into 
hearts as pure as hers ?” 

The woman entered the room as he was 
speaking, and must have caught his words, 
for a deep crimson flushed her pale face. 




110 


THE SCHONBEliG-COTTA FAMILY. 


As she turned awa}', her whole frame quiv¬ 
ered with a suppressed sob. But afterwards, 
when the priest left the room, she came up 
to me and said, looking with her sad, dark, 
lustreless eyes at me, “ You were saying 
that some doubt the efficacy of these indul¬ 
gences? But you do not ? I cannot trust 
him," she added softly, “ he would be afraid 
to tell me if he thought so.” 

I hesitated what to say. I could not tell 
an untruth; and before those searching, 
earnest eyes, any attempt at evasion would 
have been vain. 

“You do not believe this letter can do 
anything for me,” she said; “ nor do I* 
And moving quietly to the hearth,- she tore 
the indulgence into shreds, and threw it on 
the flames. 

“Do not tell him this,” she said; “he 
thinks it comforts me.” 

I tried to say some words about repent¬ 
ance and forgiveness being free to all. 

“ Repentance for me,” she said, “ would 
be to leave him, would it not?” 

I could not deny it. 

“I will never leave him,” she replied, 
with a calmness which was more like prin¬ 
ciple than passion. “ He has sacrificed life 
for me, but for me he might have been a 
reatand honored man. And do you think 
would leave him to bear his blighted life 
alone ?” 

Ah! it was no dread of scorn or discipline 
which kept her from the convent. 

For some time I was silenced. 1 dared 
neither to reproach nor to comfort. At 
length I said, “Life, whether joyful or 
sorrowful, is very short, Holiness is infin¬ 
itely better than happiness here, and holi¬ 
ness makes happiness in the life beyond. 
If you felt it would be for his good, you 
would do anything, at any cost to yourself, 
would you not ?” 

Her eyes filled with tears. “ You believe, 
then, that there is some good left even in 
me,” she said. “ For this may God bless 
you,” and silently she left the room. 

Five hundred years ago these two lives 
might have been holy, honorabie, and 
happy; and now !— 

I left that house with a heavy heart, and 
a mind more bewildered than before. 

But that pale, worn face; those deep, sad, 
truthful eyes; and that brow, that might 
have been as pure as the brow of a St. 
Agnes, have haunted me often since. And 
whenever I think of it, 1 say,— 


“ God be merciful to them and to me, 
sinners.” 

For had not my own good, pure, pious 
mother doubts and scruples almost as bit¬ 
ter? Did not she also live too often as if 
under a curse ? Who or what lias thrown 
this shadow on so many homes? Who that 
knows the interior of many convents dares 
to say they are holier than homes ? Who 
that has lived with, or confessed many 
monks or nuns, can dare to say their hearts 
are more heavenly than those of husband 
or wife, father or mother ? Alas! the 
questions of that priest are nothing new to 
me. But I dare not entertain them. For 
if monastic life is a delusion, to what have 
I sacrificed hopes which were so absorbing, 
and might have been so pure ? 

Regrets are burdens a brave man must 
cast off. For my little life what does it 
matter ? But.to see vice shamefully reign¬ 
ing in the most sacred places, and scruples, 
perhaps false, staining the purest hearts, 
who can behold these things and not 
mourn? Crimes a pagan would have ab¬ 
horred atoned for by a few florins; sins 
which the Holy Scriptures scarcely seem to 
condemn weighing on tender consciences 
like crimes ! What will be the end of this 
chaos ? 

The next night I spent in the castle of an 
old knight in the Thiiringen forest, Otto 
von Gersdorf. He welcomed me very hos¬ 
pitably to his table, at which a stately old 
lady presided, his Widowed sister. 

' “ What is all this talk about Dr. Luther 
and his theses?” he asked; “only, I 
suppose, some petty quarrel between tiie 
monks ! And yet my nephew Ulrich thinks 
there is no one on earth like this little 
Brother Martin. You good Augustinians 
do not like the Black Friars to have all the 
profit; is that it?” he asked, laughingly. 

“ That is not Dr,.Luther’s motive, at all 
events,” I said; “ I do not believe money is 
more to him than it is to the birds of the 
air.” 

“ No, brother,” said the lady; “ think of 
the beautiful words our Cliriemhild read us 
from his book on the Lord’s Prayer.” 

“Yes; you, and Ulrich, and Cliriemhild, 
and Atlantis,” rejoined the old knight, 
“ you are all alike; the little friar has be¬ 
witched you all.” 

The names of my sisters made my lier t 
beat. 






FRITZ'S STORY. 


Ill 


“ Does the lady know Chriemhild and 
Atlantis Cotta?” I asked. 

“Come, nephew Ulrich,” said the knight 
to a young man who had just entered the 
hall from the chase; “ tell this good brother 
all you know of Fraulein Chriemhild Cotta.” 

We were soon the best friends; and long 
after the old knight and his sister had re¬ 
tired, Ulrich von Gersdorf and I sat up dis¬ 
coursing about Dr. Luther and his noble 
words and deeds, and of names dearer to 
us both even than his. 

“ Then you are Fritz,” he said musingly, 
after a pause; “the Fritz they all delight to 
talk of, and think no one can ever be equal 
to. You are the Fritz that Chriemhild says 
her mother always hoped would have wed¬ 
ded that angel maiden Eva von Sehonberg, 
who is now a nun at Nimptschen; whose 
hymn-book and * Theologia Teutseli’ she 
carried with her to the convent. 1 wonder 
you could have left her to become a monk,” 
lie continued; “ your vocation must have 
been very strong.” 

At that moment it certainly felt very 
weak. But I would not for the world have 
let him see this, and I said, with as steady 
a voice as I could command, “I believe it 
was God’s will.” 

“Well,” lie continued, “ it is good for 
any one to have seen her, and to carry that 
image of purity and piety with him into 
cloister or home. It is better than any 
painting of the saints, to have that angelic, 
childlike countenance, and that voice sweet 
as church music, in one’s heart.” 

“ It is,” I said, and I could not have said 
a word more. Happily for me, he turned 
to another subject and expatiated for a long 
time on the beauty and goodness of his 
little Chriemhild, who was to be his wife, 
he said, next year; whilst through my 
heart only two thoughts remained distinct, 
namely, what my mother had wished about 
Eva and nie, and that Eva had taken my 
“ Theologia Teutsch” into the convent with 
her. 

It took some days before I could remove 
that sweet, guileless, familiar face, to the 
saintly,‘.unearthly height in my heart, where 
only it is safe for me to gaze on it. 

But 1 believe Ulrich thought me a very 
sympathizing listener, for in about an hour 
lie said,— 

“You are a patient and good-natured 
monk, to listen thus to my romances. 
However, she is your sister, and I wish you 


wo'uld be at our wedding. But, at all events, 
it will be delightful to have news for 
Chriemhild and all of them about Fritz.” 

I had intended to go on to Wittenberg 
for a few days, but after that conversation 
I did not dare to do so at once. I returned 
to the University of Tubingen, to quiet my 
mind a little with Greek and Hebrew, under 
the direction of the excellent Reuchlin, it 
being the will of our Vicar-General that 1 
should study the languages. 

At Tubingen I found Dr. Luther’s theses 
the great topic of debate. Men of learning 
rejoiced in the theses as an assault on bar¬ 
barism and ignorance; men of straightfor¬ 
ward integrity hailed them as a protest 
against a system of lies and imposture; men 
of piety gave thanks for them as a defence 
of holiness and truth. The students enthu¬ 
siastically greeted Dr. Luther as the prince 
of the new age; the aged Reuchlin and 
many of the professors recognized him as 
an assailant of old foes from a new point of 
attack. 

Here I attended for some weeks the lec¬ 
tures of the young doctor, Philip Melanethon 
(then only twenty-one, yet already a doctor 
for four yaars), until he was summoned to 
Wittenberg, which he reached on the 25th of 
August, 1518. 

On business of the order, I was deputed 
about the same time on a mission to the 
Augustinian convent at Wittenberg, so that 
I saw him arrive. The disappointment at 
his first appearance was great. Could this 
little unpretending-looking youth be the 
great scholar Reuclilinliad recommended so 
warmly, and from whose abilities the Elec¬ 
tor Frederick expected such great results for 
his new University ? 

Dr. Luther was among the first to dis¬ 
cover the treasure hidden in this insignificant 
frame. But his first Latin harangue, four 
days after his arrival, won the admiration 
of all; and very soon his lecture-room was 
crowded. 

This was the event which absorbed Wit¬ 
tenberg when first I saw it. 

The return to my old home was very 
strange to me. Such a broad barrier of 
time and circumstance had grown up be¬ 
tween me and those most familiar to me! 

Else, matronly as she was, with her keys, 
her stories, her large household, and her two 
children, the baby Fritz and Gretchen, was 
in heart the very same to me as when we 
parted for my first term at Erfurt. Her 







112 


TEE SOHONBERG-COTTA FAMILY . 


honest, kind blue eyes, hud the very same 
look. But around her was a whole new 
world of strangers, strange to me as her own 
new life, with whom I had no links what¬ 
ever. 

With Chriemhild and the younger child¬ 
ren the recollection of me as the elder | 
brother seemed struggling with their rev¬ 
erence for the priest. " Christopher appeared 
to look on me with a mixture of pity, and 
respect, and perplexity, which prevented 
my having any intimate intercourse with 
him at all. 

Only my mother seemed unchanged with 
regard to me, although much more aged 
and feeble. But in her affection there was 
a clinging tenderness which pierced my 
heart more than the bitterest reproaches. I 
felt by the silent watching of her eyes how 
she had missed me. 

My father was little altered, except that 
his schemes appeared to give him a new 
and placid satisfaction in the very impossi¬ 
bility of their fulfilment, and that the rela¬ 
tions between him and my grandmother 
were much more friendly. 

There was at first a little severity in our 
grandmother’s manner to me, which wore 
off when we understood how much Dr. j 
Luther’s teaching had done for us both; 
and she never wearied of hearing what he 
had said and done at Borne. 

The one who, I felt, would have been 
entirely the same, was gone for ever; and I 
could scarcely regret the absence which left 
that one image undimmed by the touch of 
time, and surrounded by no barriers of 
change. 

But of Eva no one spoke to me, except 
little Thekla, who sang to me over and over 
the Latin hymns Eva had taught her, and 
asked if she sang them at all in the same 
way. 

I told her yes. They were the same 
words, the same melodies, much of the 
same soft, reverent, innocent manner. But 
little Thekla’s voice was deep and powerful, 
and clear like a thrush’s; and Eva’s used to 
be like the soft murmuring of a dove in the 
depth of some quiet wood—hardly a voice 
at all—an embodied prayer, as if you stood 
at the threshold of her lieart, and heard the 
music of her happy, holy, childish thoughts 
within. 

No, nothing could ever break the echo of 
that "Voice to me. 

But Thekla and 1 became great friends. 


She had scarcely known me of old. We 
became friends as we were. There was 
nothing to recall, nothing to efface. And 
Cousin Eva had been to her as a star or 
angel in heaven, or as if she had been 
another child sent by God out of some 
I beautiful old legend to be her friend. 

Altogether, there was some pain in this, 
visit to my old home. L had prayed so 
earnestly that the blank my departure had 
made might be filled up; but now that I 
saw it filled, and the life of my beloved 
running its busy course, with no place in it 
for me, it left a dreary feeling of exile on 
my heart. If the dead could thus return, 
would they feel anything of this? Not the 
holy dead, surely. They would rejoice that 
the sorrow, having wrought its work, 
should cease to be so bitter—that the blank 
should not, indeed, be filled (no true love 
can replace another), but veiled and made 
fruitful, as time and nature veil all ruins. 

But the holy dead would revisit earth 
from a home, a Father’s house;—and that 
the cloister is not, nor can ever be. 

Yet I would gladly have remained at 
Wittenberg. Compared with Wittenberg, 
all the world seemed asleep. There it was 
morning, and an atmosphere of hope and 
activity was around my heart. Dr. Luther 
was there; and, whether consciously or not, 
all who look for better days seem to fix my 
eyes on him. 

But I was sent to Mainz. On my journey 
thither I went out of my way to take a 
new book of Dr. Luther’s to my poor Priest 
Buprecht in Franconia. His village lay in 
i the depths of a pine forest.. The book was 
the Exposition of the Lord’s Prayer in 
German, for lay and unlearned people. 
The priest’s house was empty; but I laid 
the book on a wooden seat in the porch, 
with my name and a few words Of gratitude 
for his hospitality. And as I wound my 
way through the forest. T saw from a height 
on the opposite side of the valley a woman 
enter the porch, and stoop to pick up the 
book, and then stand reading it in the 
doorway. As I turned away, her figure 
still stood motionless in the arch of the 
porch, with the white leaves of the open 
book relieved against the shadow of the 
interior. 

1 prayed that the words might be written 
on her heart. Wonderful words of holy 
love and grace I knew were there, which 










113 


vntrz '8 

would restore hope and polity to any heart ; 
on which they were written. 

And now 1 am placed in this Augustinian 
monastery at Mainz in the Rhine-land. 

This convent has its own peculiar tradi¬ 
tions. Here is a dungeon in which, not 
forty years ago (in 1481), died John of 
Wesel—the old man who had dared to pro¬ 
test against indulgences, and to utter such 
truths as Dr. Luther is upholding now. 

An aged monk of this monastery, who 
was young when John of Wesel died, 
remembers him, and has often spoken to 
me about him. The inquisitors instituted 
a process against him, which was carried 
on, like so many others, in the secret of the 
cloister. 

It was said that he made a general recanta- 
ation, but that two accusations which were 
brought against him he did not attempt in his 
defence to deny. They were these: “That 
it is not his monastic life which saves any 
monk, but the grace of God;” and, “ That 
the same Holy Spirit who inspired the Holy 
Scriptures alone can interpret them with 
power to the heart. 

The inquisitors burned his books; at 
which, my informant said, the old man 
wept. 

“Why,” he said, should men be so in¬ 
flamed against him? There was so much 
in his books that was good, and must they be 
all burned for the little evil that was mixed 
with the good ? Surely this was man’s judg¬ 
ment, not God’s—not his who would have 
spared Sodom, at Abraham’s prayer, for but 
ten righteous, had they been found there. 
O God,” he sighed, “ must the good perish 
with the evil ?” 

But the inquisitors were not to be moved. 
The books were condemned and ignomini- 
ously burned in public; the old man’s 
name was branded with heresy; and he 
himself was silenced, and left in the con¬ 
vent prison to die. 

I asked the monk who told me of this, 
what were the especial heresies for which 
John of Wesel was condemned. 

“ Heresies against the Church, I believe,” 
he replied. * I have heard him in his 
sermons declare that the Church was be¬ 
coming like what the Jewish nation was in 
the days of our Lord, He protested against 
the secular splendors of the priests and 
prelates—against the cold ceremonial into 
which he said the services had sunk, and 
the empty superstitions which were substi- 


t sro/if. 

j tuted for true piety of heart and life. He 
said that the salt had lost its savor; that 
many of the priests were thieves and 
robbers, and not shepherds; that the re¬ 
ligion in fashion was little better than that 
of the Pharisees who put our Lord to death 
—a cloak for spiritual pride, and narrow, 
selfish bitterness. He declared that divine 
and ecclesiastical authority were of very 
different weight; that the outward profess¬ 
ing Church was to be distinguished from 
the true living Church of Christ; that the 
power of absolution given to the priests 
was sacramental, and not judicial. In a 
sermon at Worms, I once heard him say 
he thought little of the Pope, the Church, 
or the Councils, as a foundation to build our 
faith upon ‘ Christ alone,’ he declared, ‘ I 
praise. May the word of Christ dwell in 
us richly.’ ” 

“They were bold words,” I remarked. 

‘ ‘ More than that,” replied the aged monk;. 
“John of Wesel protested that what the 
Bible did not hold as sin, neither could he ; 
and he is even reported to have said, “ Eat 
on fast days, if thou art hungry.” 

“ That is a concession many of the monks 
scarcely need,”I observed. “ His life, then, 
was not condemned, but only his doctrine.” 

“ I was sorry,” the old monk resumed, 
“ that it was necessary to condemn him; for 
from that time to this, I never have heard 
preaching that stirred the heart like his. 
When he ascended the pulpit, the church 
was thronged. The laity understood and 
listened to him as eagerly as the religious. 
It was a pity he was a heretic, for I do not 
expect ever to hear his like again.” 

“ You have never heard Dr. Luther 
preach ? ” I said. 

“ Dr. Luther who wrote those theses they 
are talking so much of ?” he asked. “ Do 
the people throng to hear his sermons, and 
hang on his words as if they were words of 
life?” 

“ They do,” I replied. 

“Then,” rejoined the old monk softly, 
“let Dr. Luther take care. That was the 
way with so many of the heretical preachers. 
With John of Goch at Mechlin, and John 
Wesel whom they expelled from Paris, I 
have heard it was just the same. But,” 
he continued, “ if Dr. Luther comes to 
Mainz, I will certainly try to hear him. I 
should like to have my cold, dry, old heart 
moved like that again. Often when I read 
the holy Gospels his words come back. 



114 


THfi SCTTONDftRG-COTTA • FAMILY . 


Brother, it was like the breath of life.” 

The last man that ventured to say in the 
face of Germany that man’s word is not to 
be placed on an equality with God’s, and 
that the Bible is the only standard of truth, 
and the one rule of right and wrong—this 
is how he died 1 

How will it be with the next—with the 
man that is proclaiming this in the face of 
the world now ? 

The old monk turned back to me, after 
we had separated, and said, in a low voice,— 

“Tell Dr. Luther to take warning by 
John of Wesel. Holy men and great 
preachers may so easily become heretics 
without knowing it. And yet,” he added,. 
“ to preach such sermons as John of Wesel, 
I am not sure it is not worth while to die in 
prison. I think I could be content to die, 
if 1 could hear one such again ! Tell Dr. 
Luther to take care; but, nevertheless, if he 
comes to Mainz 1 will hear him.” 

The good, then, in John of Wesel’s word 
has not perished, in spite of the flames. 


XIV. 

ELSE’S STORY. 

Wittenberg, July 13,1520. 

MANY events have happened since last I 
wrote, both in this little world and in the 
large world outside. Our Gretchen has two 
little brothers, who are as ingenious in 
destruction, and seem to have as many 
designs against their own welfare, as their 
uncle had at their age, and seem likely to 
perplex Gretchen, dearly as she loves them, 
much as Christopher and Pollux did me. 
Chriemhild is married, and has gone to her 
home in the Thilringen forest. Atlantis is 
betrothed to Conrad Winkelried, a Swiss 
student. Pollux is gone to Spain, on some 
mercantile affairs of the Eisenach house of 
Cotta, in which he is a partner; and Fritz 
has been among us once more. That is now 
about two years since. He was certainly 
much graver than of old. Indeed he often 
looked more than grave, as if some weight 
of sorrow rested on him. But with our 
mother and the children he was always 
cheerful. 

Gretchen and Uncle Fritz formed the 
strongest mutual attachment, and to this 
day she often asks me when he will come 
back; and nothing delights her more than 


to sit on my knee before his picture, and 
hear me tell over and over again the stories 
of our old talks in the lumber-room at Eisen¬ 
ach, or of the long days we used to spend 
in the pine forests, gathering wood for the 
winter fires. She thinks no festival could 
be so delightful as that; and her favorite 
amusement is to gather little bundles of 
willow or oak twigs, by the river Elbe, or 
on the Duben Heath, and bring them home 
for household use. All the splendid pup¬ 
pets and toys her father brings her from 
Nuremberg, or has sent from Venice, do not 
give her half the pleasure that she finds in 
the heath, when he takes her there, and she 
returns with her little apron full of dry 
sticks, and her hand as brown and dirty as 
a little wood-cutter’s, fancying she is doing 
what Uncle Fritz and I did when we were 
children, and being useful. 

Last summer she was endowed with a 
special apple and pear tree of her own, and 
the fruit of these she stores with her little 
fagots to give at Christmas to a poor old 
woman we know. 

Gottfried and I want the children to learn 
early that pure joy of giving, and of doing 
kindnesses, which transmutes wealth from 
dust into true gold, and prevents these 
possessions which are such good servants 
from becoming our masters, and reducing 
us, as they seem to do so many wealthy 
people, into the mere slaves and hired 
guardians of things. 

I pray God often that the experience of 
poverty which I had for so many years may 
never be lost. It seems to me a gift God 
has given me, just as a course at the Univer¬ 
sity is a gift. 1 have graduated in the 
school of poverty, and God grant I may 
never forget the secrets of poverty taught 
me about the struggles and wants of the 
poor. 

The room in which I write now, with its 
carpets, pictures, and carved furniture, is 
very different from the dear bare old lum¬ 
ber-room where I began my chronicle; and 
the inlaid ebony and ivory cabinet on which 
my paper lies is a different desk from the 
piles of old books where I used to trace the 
first pages slowly in a childish hand. But 
the poor man’s luxuries will always be the 
most precious to me. The warm sunbeams, 
shining through the translucent vine-leaves 
at the open window, are fairer than all the 
I jewel-like Venetian glass of the closed case- 
I ments which are now dying crimson the 







fiLSE'S STORY. 


il5 


pages of Dr. Luther’s Commentary, left ! 
open on the window-seat an hour since by 
Gottfried. 

But how can I be writing so much about 
: my own tiny world, when all the world 
\ around me is agitated by such great fears 
i and hopes ? 

At this moment, through the open win¬ 
dow, I see Dr. Luther and Dr. Philip Mel- 
ancthon walking slowly up the street in 
close conversation. The hu m of their voices 
reaches me here, although they are talking 
low. How different they look, and are; 
and yet what friends they have become! 
Probably, in a great degree, because of the 
difference. The one looks like a veteran 
soldier, with his rock-like brow, his 
dark eyes, his vigorous form, and his 
firm step ; the other, with his high, ex¬ 
panded forehead, his thin, worn face, and 
his slight youthful frame, like a combina¬ 
tion of a young student and an old philoso¬ 
pher. 

Gottfried says God has given them to 
each other and to Germany, blessing the 
Church as he does the world by the union 
i of opposites, rain and sunshine, heat and 
i cold, sea and land, husband and wife. 

How those two great men (for Gottfried 
f says Dr. Melancthon is great, and I know 
Dr. Luther is) love and reverence each 
other! Dr. Luther says he is but the fore¬ 
runner, and Melancthon the true prophet! 
that he is but the wood-cutter clearing the 
forest with rougli blows, that Dr. Philip 
may sow the precious seed; and when he 
went to encounter the legate at Augsburg, 
he wrote, that if Philip lived it mattered 
| little what became of him. 

But we do not think so, nor does Dr. 

! Melancthon. “ No one,” he says, “comes 
I near Dr. Luther, and indeed the heart of 
| the whole nation hangs on him. Who stirs 
; the heart of Germany—of nobles, peasants, 

I princes, women, children—as he does with 
f his noble, faithful words ? ” 

Twice during these last j r ears we have 
been in the greatest anxiety about his 
safety—once when he was summoned before 
I the legate at Augsburg, and once when he 
| went to the great disputation with Dr. Eck 
at Leipsic. 

But how great the difference between his 
purpose when he went to Augsburg, and 
when he returned from Leipsic ! 

At Augsburg he would have conceded I 
anything, but the truth about the free justi¬ 


fication of every sinner who believes in 
Christ. He reverenced the Pope, he would 
not for the world become a heretic. No 
name of opprobrium was so terrible to him 
as that. 

At Leipsic he had learned to disbelieve 
that the Pope had any authority to deter¬ 
mine doctrine, and lie boldly confessed 
that the Hussites (men till now abhorred in 
Saxony as natural enemies as well as deadly 
heretics ought to be honored for confessing 
sound truth. And from that time both Dr. 
Luther and Melancthon have stood forth 
openly as the champions of the Word of God 
against the papacy. 

> Now, however, a worse danger threatens 
him, even the bull of excommunication 
which they say is now being forged at 
Rome, and which has never yet failed to 
crush where it has fallen. Dr. Luther has, 
indeed, taught us to not to dread it as a 
spiritual weapon, but we fear its temporal 
effects, especially if followed by the ban of 
the empire. 

Often, indeed, he talks of taking refuge 
in some other land; the good Elector, even, 
himself, has at times advised it, fearing no 
longer to be able to protect him. But God 
preserve him to Germany. 

June 23, 1520. 

This evening, as we were sitting in my 
father’s house, Christopher brought us, 
damp from the press, a copy of Dr. 
Luther’s Appeal to His Imperial Majesty, 
and to the Christian Nobility of the German 
nation, on the Reformation of Christen¬ 
dom. Presenting it to our grandmother, 
he said,— 

“ Here, madam, is a weapon worthy of 
the bravest days of the Schdnbergs, mighty 
to the pulling down of strongholds.” 

“Ah,” sighed our mother, “ always wars 
and lightings ! It is a pity the good work 
cannot be done more quietly.” 

“ Ah, grandmother,” said my father, 
“ only see how her burgher-life has de¬ 
stroyed the heroic spirit of her crusading- 
ancestors. She thinks that the Holy Places 
are to be won back from the infidels with¬ 
out a blow, only by begging their pardon 
and kissing the hem of their garments.” 

“ You should hear Catherine Krapp, Dr. 
Melancthon’s wife !” rejoined our mother; 
“ she agrees with me that these are terrible 
times. She says she never sees the doctor 
go away without thinking he may be im- 









316 THE SCIIOJSmERG-COTTA FAMILY. 


mured in some dreadful dungeon before 
they meet again.” 

“But remember, dear mother,” I said, 
“ your fears when first Dr. Luther assailed 
Tetzel and his indulgences three years ago 1 
And who has gained the victory there! 
Dr. Martin is the admiration of all good 
men throughout Germany; and poor Tet¬ 
zel, despised by his own party, rebuked by 
the legate, died, they say, of a broken 
heart just after the great Leipsic disputa- 
f'on.” 

“ Poor Tetzel 1” said my mother, “ his in¬ 
dulgences could not bind up a broken heart. 
I shall always love Dr. Luther for writing 
him a letter of comfort when he was dying, 
despised and forsaken even by his own 
party. I trust that He who can pardon has 
had mercy on his soul.” 

“Read to us, Christopher,” said our 
grandmother; “your mother would not 
shrink from any battle-field if there were 
wounds there which her hands could bind.” 

“ No,” said Gottfried, “ the end of war 
is peace,—God’s peace, based on his truth. 
Blessed are those who in the struggle never 
lose sight of the end.” 

Christopher read, not without interrup¬ 
tion. Many things in the book were new 
and startling to most of us:— 

“It is not rashly,” Dr. Luther began. 
“ that I, a man of the people, undertake to 
address your lordships. The wretchedness 
and oppression that now overwhelm all the 
states of Christendom, and Germany in 
particular, force from me a cry of distress. 
I am constrained to call for help; 1 must 
see whether God will not bestow his Spirit 
on some man belonging to our country, 
and stretch forth his hand to our unhappy 
nation.” 

Dr. Luther never seems to think lie is to 
do the great work. He speaks as if he 
were only fulfilling some plain, humble 
duty, and calling other men to undertake 
the great achievement; and all the while 
that humble duty is the great achievement, 
and lie is doing it. 

Dr. Luther spoke of the wretchedness of 
Italy, the unlippy land where the Pope’s 
throne is set, her ruined monasteries, her 
decayed cities, her corrupted people; and 
then he showed how Roman avarice and 
pride were seeking to reduce Germany to 
a state as enslaved. He appealed to the 
young emperor, Charles, soon about to be 
crowned. He reminded all the rulers of 


their responsibilities. He declared that the 
papal territory, called the patrimony of St. 
Peter, was the fruit of robbery. Generous¬ 
ly holding out his hand to the very out¬ 
casts his enemies had sought to insult him 
most grievously by comparing him with, he 
said: 

“ It is time that we were considering the 
cause of the Bohemians, ant> re-uniting 
ourselves to them.” 

At these words my grandmother dropped 
her work, and fervently clasping her hands, 
leant forward, and fixing her eyes on 
Christopher, drank in every word with in¬ 
tense eagerness. 

When he came to the denunciation of 
the begging friars, and the recommenda¬ 
tion that the parish priests should marry, 
Christopher interrupted himself by an en¬ 
thusiastic “vivat.” 

When, however, after a vivid picture of 
the oppressions and avarice of the legates, 
came the solemn abjuration:— 

“ Hearest thou this, O Pope, not most 
holy, but most sinful? May God from the 
heights of his heaven soon hurl thy throne 
into the abyss 1” my mother turned pale 
and crossed herself. 

What impressed me most was the plain 
declaration:— 

“ It has been alleged that the Pope, the 
bishops, the priests, and the monks and 
nuns form the estate spiritual or ecclesias¬ 
tical; while the princes, nobles, burgesses, 
and peasantry form the secular estate or 
laity. Let no man, however, be alarmed 
at this. All Christians constitute the spirit¬ 
ual estate; and the only difference among 
them is that of the functions which they 
discharge. We have all one baptism, one 
faith, and it is this which constitutes the 
spiritual man.” 

If this is indeed true, how many of my 
old difficulties it removes with a stroke I 
All callings, then, may be religious call¬ 
ings; all men and women of a religious 
order. Then my mother is truly and un¬ 
doubtedly as much treading the way ap¬ 
pointed her as Aunt Agnes; and the 
monastic life is only one among callings 
equally sacred. 

When I said this to my mother, she said, 
“ 1 as religious a woman as Aunt Agnes! 
No, Else ! whatever Dr. Luther ventures to 
declare, lie would not say that. I do some¬ 
times have a hope for his dear Son’s sake 
God hears even my poor feeble prayers; 



ELSE’S STORY. 


117 


but, to pray night and day, and abandon all 
for God, like my sister Agnes, that is 
another thing altogether.” 

But when, as we crossed the street to our 
home, 1 told Gottfried how much those 
words of Dr. Luther had touched me, and 
asked if he really thought vve in our secular 
calling were not only doing our work by a 
kind of indirect permission, but by a direct 
vocation from God, he replied,— 

“ My doubt. Else, whether the vocation 
which leads men to abandon home is from 
God at all; whether it has either his com¬ 
mand or even his permission.” 

But if Gottfried is right, Fritz has sacri¬ 
ficed his life to a delusion, llow can 1 
believe that? And yet if he could per¬ 
ceive it, how life might change for him ! 
Might he not even yet be restored to us ? 
But I am dreaming. 

October 25, 1520. 

More and more burning words from Dr. 
Luther. To-day we have been reading his 
new book on the Babylonish Captivity. 
“ God has said,” he writes in this, “ Who¬ 
soever shall believe and be baptized shall 
be saved.’ On this promise, if we receive 
it with faith, hangs our whole salvation. If 
we believe, our heart is fortified by the 
divine promise; and although all should 
forsake the believer, this promise which he 
believes will never forsake him. With it 
he will resist the adversary who rushes 
upon his soul, and will have wherewithal 
to answer pitiless death, and even the judg¬ 
ment ot God.” And he says in another 
place, “The vow made at our baptism is 
sufficient of itself, and comprehends more 
than we can ever accomplish. Hence all 
other vows may be abolished. Whoever 
enters the priesthood or any religious order, 
let him well understand that the works of a 
monk or of a priest, however difficult they 
may be, differ in no respect in the sight of 
God from those of a countryman who tills 
the ground, or of a woman who conducts a 
household. God values all things by the 
standard of faith. And it often happens 
that the simple labor of a male or female 
servant is more agreeable to God than the 
fasts and the works of a monk, because in 
these faith is wanting.” 

What a consecration this thought gives 
to my commonest duties! Yes, when 1 am 
directing the maids in their work, or shar¬ 
ia >g Gottfried’s cares, or simply trying to 
b 'litou ids ho.rje at the end of the busy 


day, or lulling my children to sleep, can I 
indeed be serving God as much as Dr. 
Luther, at the altar or in his lecture-room? 
I also, then, have indeed my vocation direct 
from God. 

How could I ever have thought the mere 
publication of a book would have been an 
event to stir our heartsl ike the arrival of a 
friend! Yet it is even thus with every one 
of those pamphlets of Dr. Luther’s. They 
move the whole of our two households, from 
our grandmother to Tiiekla, and even the 
little maid, to whom I read portions. She 
says, with tears, “If the mother and 
father could hear this in the forest!” Stu¬ 
dents and burghers, have not patience to 
wait till they reach home, but read the 
heart stirring pages as they walk through 
the streets. And often an audience collects 
around some communicative reader, who 
cannot be content with keeping the free, 
liberating truths to ininself. 

Already, Christopher says, four thousand 
copies of the “ Appeal to the Nobility,” are 
circulating through Germany. 

I always thought before of books as the 
peculiar property of the learned. But Dr. 
Luther’s books are a living voice,—a heart 
God has awakened and taught, speaking to 
countless hearts as a man talketh with his 
friend. 1 can indeed see now, with my 
father and Christopher, that the printing- 
press is a nobler weapon than even the 
spears and broadswords of our knightly 
Bohemian ancestors. 

Wittenberg, December 10,1520. 

Dr. Luther has taken a great step to-day. 
He has publicly burned the Decretals, with 
other ancient writings, on which the claims 
of the Court of Rome are founded, but 
which are now declared to be forgeries; 
and more than this, he has burnt the 
Pope’s bull of excommunication against 
himself. 

Gottfried says that for centuries such a 
bonfire as this has not been seen. He thinks 
it means nothing less than an open and 
deliberate renunciation of the papal tyranny 
which for so many hundred years has held 
the whole of western Christendom in bond¬ 
age. He took our two boys to see it, that 
we may remind them of it in after years as 
the first great public act of freedom. 

Early in the morning the town was astir. 
Many of the burghers, professors, and stu¬ 
dents knew what was about to be done; for 






118 


THE 8CH0NBERG-GOTTA FAMILY , 


this was no deed of impetuous haste or angry 
vehemence. 

I dressed the children early, and we went 
to my father’s house. 

Wittenberg is as full now of people of 
various languages as the tower of Babel 
must have been after the confusion of 
tongues. But never was this more manifest 
than to-day. 

Flemish monks from the Augustine clois¬ 
ters at Antwerp; Dutch students from Fin¬ 
land; Swiss youths, with their erect forms 
and free mountain gait; knights from 
Prussia and Lithuania; strangers even from 
quite foreign lands,—all attracted hither by 
Dr. Luther’s living wprds of truth passed 
under our windows about nine o’clock this 
morning, in the direction of the Elster gate, 
eagerly gesticulating and talking as they 
went. Then Thekla, Atlantis, and I 
mounted to an upper room, and watched the 
smoke rising from the pile, until the glare 
of the conflagration burst through it, and 
stained with a. faint red the pure daylight. 

Soon afterwards the crowds began to 
return; but there seemed to me to be a 
gravity and solemnity in the manner of 
most, different from the eager haste with 
which they had gone forth. 

“They seem like men returning from 
some great Church festival,” I said. 

“ Or from the lighting a signal-Are on the 
mountains, which shall wake the whole 
land to freedom,” said Christopher, as they 
rejoined us. 

“Or from binding themselves with a 
solemn oath to liberate their homes, like the 
Three Men at Grutli,” said Conrad Winkel- 
ried, the young Swiss to whom Atlantis is 
betrothed. 

“Yes,” said Gottfried, “tires which may 
be the beacons of a world’s deliverance, and 
may kindle the death-piles of those who 
dared to light them, are no mere students’ 
bravado.” 

“ Who did the deed, and what was 
burned ?” I asked. 

“One of the masters of arts lighted the 
pile,” my husband replied, “ and then 
threw on it the Decretals, the false Epistles 
of St. Clement, and other forgeries, which 
have propped up the edified of lies for cen¬ 
turies, And when the flames which con¬ 
sumed them had done their work and died 
away, Dr. Luther himself, stepping forward, 
solemnly laid the Pope’s bull of excommu- 
jiication on die fire, saying amidst the 


breathless silence, ‘As thou hast troubled 
the Lord’s saints, may the eternal fire de¬ 
stroy thee.’ Not a word broke the silence 
until the last crackle and gleam of those 
symbolical flames had ceased, and then 
gravely but joyfully we all returned to our 
homes.” 

“ Children,” said our grandmother “ you 
have done well; yet you are not the first 
that have defied Rome.” 

“ Nor perhaps the last she will silence,” 
said my husband. “But the last enemy 
will be destroyed at last; and meantime 
every martyr is a victor.” 

EVA’S STORY. 

1 have read the whole of the New Testa¬ 
ment through to Sister Beatrice and Aunt 
Agnes. Strangely different auditors they 
were in powers of mind and in experience 
of life; yet both met, like so many in his 
days on earth, at the feet of Jesus. 

“ He would not have despised me, even 
me,” Sister Beatrice w r ould say. “ Poor, 
fond creature, half-witted or half crazed, 
they call me; but he would have welcomed 
me:” 

“Does he not welcome you ?” I said. 

“ You think so ? Yes, I think—I am sure 
he does. My poor broken bits and rem¬ 
nants of sense and love, he will not despise 
them. He will take me as I am.” 

One day when 1 had been reading to 
1 them the chapter in St. Luke with the para¬ 
bles of the lost money, the lost sheep, and 
the prodigal, Aunt Agnes, resting her cheek 
on her thin hand, and fixing her large dark 
eyes on me, listened with intense expecta¬ 
tion to the end; and then she said,— 

“ Is that all, my child ? Begin the next 
chapter.” 

I began about the rich man and the un¬ 
just steward; but before I had read many 
words— 

“ That will do,” she said in a disappoint¬ 
ed tone. “It is another subject. Then 
not one of the Pharisees came, after all! If 
I had been there among the hard, proud 
Pharisees—as I might have been when he 
began, wondering, no doubt, that he could 
so forget himself as to eat with publicans 
and sinners—if 1 had been there, and had 
heard him speak thus, Eva, I must have 
fallen at his feet and said, ‘Lord, I am a 
Pharisee no more—I am the lost sheep, not 
one of the ninety and nine—the wandering 




EVA'S STORY. 


119 


child, not the elder brother. Place me low, 
low among the publicans and sinners— 
lower than any; but only say thou earnest 
also to seek me, even me.' And, child, lie 
would not have sent me away. “But, Eva,” 
she added, after a pause, wiping away the 
tears which ran slowly over her withered 
cheeks, “ is it not said anywhere that one 
pharisee came to him ?” 

I looked, and could find it nowhere stated 
positively that one Pharisee had abandoned 
his pride, and self-righteousness, and treas¬ 
ures of good works for Jesus. It seemed 
all on the side of the publicans. Aunt 
Agnes was at times distressed. 

“ And yet,” she said, “ I have come. I 
am no longer among those who think them¬ 
selves righteous and despise others. But I 
must come in behind all. It is I, not 
the woman who was a sinner, who am the 
miracle of his grace; for since no sin so 
keeps men from him as spiritual pride, 
there can be no sin so degrading in the 
sight of the pure and humble angels, or of 
the Lord. But look again, Eva ! Is their 
not one instance of such as I being saved ?” 

I found the history of Nicodemus, and 
we traced it through the Gospel from the 
secret visit to the popular Teacher at night, 
to the open confession of the rejected 
Saviour before Ins enemies. 

Aunt Agnes thought this might be the 
example she sought; but she wished to be 
quite sure. 

“ Nicodemus came in humility to learn,” 
she said. “We never read that he despised 
others, or thought he could make himself a 
saint.” 

At length we came to the Acts of the 
Apostles, and there, indeed, we found the 
history of one, “of the straitest sect, a 
Pharisee,” who verily thought himself doing 
God service by persecuting the despised 
Nazarenes to death. And from that time 
Aunt Agnes sought out and cherished every 
fragment of St. Paul’s history, and every 
sentence of his sermons and writings. She 
had found the example she sought of the 
‘ Pharisee who was saved’—in him who 
obtained mercy, “that in him first God 
might show forth the riches of his long- 
suffering to those who thereafter through his 
word, should believe.” 

She determined to learn Latin, that she 
might read these divine words for. herself. 
It was affecting to see her sitting among the 
novices whom' 1 taught, carefully spelling 


out the words, and repeating the declensions 
and conjugations. I had no such patient 
pupil; for although many were eager at 
first, not a few relaxed after a few weeks’ 
toil, not finding the results very apparent, 
and said it would never sound so natural 
and true as when Sister Ave translated it 
for them into German. 

I wish some learned man would translate 
the Bible into German. Why does not 
some one think of it? There is one German 
translation from the Latin, the prioress 
says, made about thirty or forty years ago; 
but it is very large and costly, and not in 
language that attracts simple people. 1 
wish the Pope would spend some of the 
money from the indulgences on a new 
translation of the New Testament. I think 
it would please God much more than build¬ 
ing St. Peter’s. 

Perhaps, however, if people had the 
German New Testament they would not 
buy the indulgences; for in all the Gospels 
and Epistles I cannot find one word about 
buying pardons; and what is more strange, 
not a word about adoring the Blessed 
Virgin, or about nunneries or monasteries. 
I cannot see that the holy apostles founded 
one such community, or recommended any 
one to do so. 

Indeed, there is so much in the New 
Testament, and in what I have read of the 
Old, about not worshipping any one but 
God, that I have quite given up saying any 
prayers to the Blessed Mother, for many 
reasons. 

In the first place, I am much more sure 
that our Lord can hear us always than his 
mother, because he so often says so. And 
I am much more sure he can help, because 
I know all power is given to him in heaven 
and in earth. 

And in the next place, if I were quite 
sure that the blessed Virgin and the saints 
could hear me always, and could help or 
would intercede, I am sure also that no one 
among them—nor the Holy Mother herself 
—is half so compassionate and full of love, 
or could understand us so well, as he who 
died for us. In the Gospels, he was always 
more accessible than the disciples. St. 
Peter might be impatient in the impetuosity 
of his zeal. Loving indignation might 
overbalance the forbearance of St. John 
the beloved, and he might wish for fire 
from heaven, on those who refused to re¬ 
ceive his Master. All the holy apostles re- 







120 


THUS SCnONBFHG-COTTA FAMILY. 


buked the poor mothers who brought their 
children, aud would have sent away the 
woman of Canaan; but he tenderly took 
the little ones into his arms from the arms 
of the mothers the disciples had rebuked. 
His patience was never wearied; he never 
misunderstood or discouraged any one. 
Therefore 1 pray to him and our Father in 
heaven alone, and through him alone. Be¬ 
cause if lie is more pitiful to sinners than 
all the saints, which of all the saints can be 
beloved of God as he is, the well-beloved 
Son ? He seems all; everything in every 
circumstance we can ever want. Higher 
mediation we cannot find, tenderer love we 
cannot crave. 

And very sure I am that the meek Mother 
of the Lord, the disciple whom Jesus loved, 
the apostle who determined to know noth¬ 
ing among his converts save Jesus Christ, 
and him crucified, will not regret any hom¬ 
age transferred from them to him. 

Nay, rather, if the blessed Virgin and the 
holy apostles have heard how, through all 
these years, such grievous and unjust things 
have been said of their Lord; how his love 
has been misunderstood, and he has been 
represented as hard to be entreated,—he 
who entreated sinners to come and be for¬ 
given;—has not this been enough to shadow 
their happiness, even in heaven ? 

A nun has lately been transferred to our 
convent, who came originally from Bohe¬ 
mia, where all her relatives had been slain 
for adhering to the party or John Hubs, the 
heretic. She is much older than I am, and 
she says she remembers well the name of 
my family, and that my great-uncle, Aunt 
Agnes’s father, died a heretic! She cannot 
tell what the heresy was, but she believes it 
was something about the blessed saci ament 
and the authority of the Pope. She had 
heai'd that otherwise lie was a charitable 
and holy man. 

Was my father, then, a Hussite? 

I have found the end of the sentence he 
gave me as his dying legacy:—“God so 
loved the world, that he gave his only be¬ 
gotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him 
should not perish, hut have everlasting 
life." And instead of being in a book not 
fit for Christian children to read, as the 
priest who took it from me said, it is in the 
Holy Scriptures 1 

Can it be possible that the world has 
come round again to the state it was in 
when the rulers and priests put the Saviour 


to death, and St. Paul persecuted the dis¬ 
ciples as heretics ? 

Nimptsohen, 1520. 

A wonderful book of Dr. Luther’s ap¬ 
peared among us a few weeks since, on the 
Babylonish Captivity; and although it was 
taken from us by the authorities, as dan¬ 
gerous reading for nuns, this was not be¬ 
fore many among us had become acquaint¬ 
ed with its contents. And it has created a 
great ferment in the convent. Some say 
they are words of impious blasphemy, some 
say they are words of living truth. He 
speaks of the forgiveness of sins being free; 
of the Pope and many of the priests being 
the enemies of the truth of God, and of the 
life and calling of a monk or nun as in no 
way holier than that of any humble believ¬ 
ing secular man or woman,—a nun no 
holier than a wife or a household servant! 

This many of the older nuns think plain 
blasphemy, Aunt Agnes says it is true, and 
more than true; for, from what I tell her, 
there can be no doubt that Aunt Cotta has 
been a lowlier and holier woman all her life 
than she can ever hope to be. 

And as to the Bible precepts, they cer¬ 
tainly seem far more adapted to people liv¬ 
ing in homes than to those secluded in con¬ 
vents. Often when I am teaching the 
young novices the precepts in the Epistles, 
they say,— 

“ Biit Sister Ave, find some precepts for 
us. These sayings are for children, and 
wives, and mothers, and brothers, and sis¬ 
ters; not for those who have neither home 
nor kindred on earth.” 

Then if I try to speak of loving God and 
the blessed Saviour, some of them say,— 
But we cannot bathe his feet with 
tears, or anoint them with ointment, or 
bring him food, or stand by his cross, as 
the good women did of old. Shut up here, 
away from every one, how can we show 
him that we love him ?” 

And I can only say, “ Dear sisters, you 
are here now; therefore surely God will 
find some way for you to serve him here.” 

But my heart aches for them, and I 
doubt no longer, I feel sure God can never 
have meant these young, joyous hearts to 
be cramped and imprisoned thus. 

Sometimes I talk about it with Aunt 
Agnes; and we consider whether, if these 
vows are indeed irrevocable, and these 
children must never see their homes again, 
the convent could not one day be removed 



EVA ’S STORY. 


121 


to some city where sick and suffering; men 
and women toil and die; so that vve might, at 
least, feed the hungry, ‘clothe the naked, 
and visit and minister to the sick and sor¬ 
rowful. That would be life once more, in¬ 
stead of this monotonous routine, which is 
not so much death as mechanism—an inani¬ 
mate existence which has never been life. 

October , 1520 . 

Sister Beatrice is very ill. Aunt Agnes 
has requested as an especial favor to be 
allowed to share the'attending on her with 
me. Never was gentler nurse or more 
grateful patient. 

It goes to my heart to see Aunt Agnes 
meekly learning from me howto render the 
little services required at the sick-bed. She 
smiles, and says her feeble blundering lin¬ 
gers had grown into mere machines for 
turning over the leaves of prayer-books, 
just as her heart was hardening into a ma¬ 
chine for saying prayers. Nine of the 
young nilns, Aunt Agnes, Sister Beatrice, 
and I, have been drawn very closely to¬ 
gether of late. Among the noblest of these 
is Catharine von Bora, a young nun, about 
twenty years of age. There is such truth 
in her full dark eyes, which look so kindly and 
frankly into mine, and such character in 
the firmly-closed mouth. She declines 
learning Latin, and has not much taste for 
learned books; but she lias much clear 
practical good sense, and she, with many 
others, delights greatly in Dr. Luther’s 
writings. .They say they are not books; 
they are a living voice. Every fragment of 
information I can give them about the doc¬ 
tor is eagerly received, and many rumors 
reach us of his influence in the world. 
When he was near Nimptsclien, two years 
ago, at the great Leipsic disputation, we 
heard that the students were enthusiastic 
about bi n, and that the common people 
seemed to drink in his words almost as they 
did our Lord’s when he spoke upon earth; 
and what is more, that the lives of some 
men and women at the court have been 
entirely changed since they had heard him. 
We were told he had been the means of 
wonderful conversions; but what was 
strange in these conversions was, that those 
so changed did not abandon their position 
in life, but only their sins, remaining where 
they were when God called them, and dis¬ 
tinguished from others, not by a veil or 
cowl, but by the light of holy works. 

On Mi3 other hand, many, especially 


among the older nuns, have received quite 
contrary impressions, and regard Dr. Luther 
as a heretic, worse than any one who ever 
rent the Church. These look very suspic¬ 
iously on us, and subject us to many 
annoyances, hindering our conversing and 
reading together as much as possible. 

We do, indeed, many of us wonder that 
Dr. Luther should use such fierce and harsh 
words against the Pope’s servants. Yet St. 
Paul even “could have wished that those 
were cut off” that troubled his flock; and 
the very lips of divine love launched woes 
against hypocrites and false shepherds 
severer than any that the Baptist or Elijah 
ever uttered in their denunciations from the 
wilderness. It seems to me that the hearts 
which are tenderest towards the wandering 
sheep will ever be severest against the 
seducing shepherds who lead them astray. 
Only we need always to remember that 
these very false shepherds themselves are, 
after all, but wretched lost sheep, driven 
hither and thither by the great robber of the 
fold. 

1521 . 

Just now the hearts of the little band 
among us who owe so much to Dr. Luther 
are lifted up night and day in prayer to 
God for him. He is soon to be on his way 
to the Imperial Diet at Worms. He has 
the Emperor’s safe-conduct, but it is said 
this did not save John Huss from the flames. 
In our prayers we are much aided by his 
own Commentary on the Book of Psalms, 
which I have just received from Uncle 
Cotta’s printing-press. 

This is now Sister Beatrice’s great treasure, 
as I sit by her bedside and read it to her. 

He says that “ the mere frigid use of the 
Palsms in the canonical hours, though little 
understood, brought some sweetness of the 
breath of life to humble hearts of old like 
the faint fragrance in the air not far from a 
bed of roses.” 

He says, “All other books give us the 
words and deeds of the saints, but this gives 
us their inmost souls.” He calls the Psalter 
“ the little Bible.” “There,” he says, “you 
may look into the hearts of the saints as 
into paradise, or into the opened heavens, 
and see the fair flowers or the shining stars, 
as it were, of their affections springing or 
beaming up to God, in response to his 
benefits and blessings. 

March , 1521 . 

News has reached me to-day from Witten- 



122 


THE SCHONBERG-COTTA FAMILY , 


berg which makes me feel indeed that the 
days when people deem they do God service 
by persecuting those who love him, are too 
truly come back. Thekla writes me that 
they have thrown Fritz into the convent 
prison at Mainz, for spreading Dr. Luthers 
doctrine among the monks. A few lines 
sent through a friendly monk have told 
them of this. She sent them on to me. 

“ My beloved ones,” he writes, “1 am in 
the prison where, forty years ago, John of 
Wesel died for the truth. I am ready to 
die if God wills it so. His truth.is worth 
dying for, and his love will strengthen me. 
But if I can I will escape, for the truth is 
worth living for. If however, yon do not 
hear of me again, know that the truth I 
died for is Christ’s, and that the love which 
sustained me is Christ himself. And like¬ 
wise, that to the last I pray for you all, and 
for Eva; and tell her that the thought of her 
has helped me often to believe in goodness 
an^ truth and that I look assuredly to meet 
her and all of you again Friedrich 
SCHONBERG-COTTA.” 

The prison !—death itself cannot more 
completely separate Fritz and me. Indeed, 
of death itself I have often thought as 
bringing us a step nearer, rending one veil 
between us. Yet, now that it seems so 
possible,—that perhaps it has already come 
—I feel there was a kind of indefinable 
sweetness in being only on the same earth 
together, in treading the same pilgrim way. 
At least we could help each other by 
prayer; and now, if he is indeed treading 
the streets of the heavenly city, so high 
above, the world does seem darker. 

But, alas ! ne may not be in the heavenly 
city, but in some cold earthly dungeon, 
suffering I know not what! 

I have read the words over and over, 
until I have almost lost their meaning. 
He has no morbid desire to die. He will 
escape if he can, and he is daring enough 
to accomplish much. And yet, if the danger 
were not great, he would not alarm Aunt 
Cotta with even the possibility of death. 
He always considered others so tenderly. 

He says I have helped him, him who 
taught and helped me a poor ignorant child, 
so much I Yet I suppose it may be so. It 
teaches us so much to teach others. And 
we always understood each other so per¬ 
fectly with so few words. I feel as if 
blindness had fallen on me when I think of 


him now. My heart gropes about in the 
dark and cannot find him. 

But then I look up, my Saviour, to thee. 
“To thee the night and the day are both 
alike.” I dare not think lie is suffering; it 
breaks my heart. I cannot rejoice as I 
would in thinking he may be in heaven. I 
know not what to ask, but thou art with 
him as with me. Keep him close under the 
shadow of thy wing. There we are safe, 
and there we are together. And oh, corn- 
fort Aunt Cotta. She must need it sorely. 

Fritz, then, like our little company at 
Nimptsclien, loves the words of Dr. Luther. 
When I think of this I rejoice almost more 
than I weep for him. These truths believed 
in our hearts seem to unite us more than 
prison or death can divide. When 1 t hink 
of this I can sing once more St. Bernard’s 
hymn:— 

SALVE CAPUT CRUENTATUM. 

Hail! thou Head, so bruised and wounded 
With the crown of thorns surrounded, 

Smitten with the mocking reed, 

Wounds which may not cease to bleed 
Trickling faint and slow. 

Hail! from whose most blessed brow 
None can wipe the blood-drops now; 

All the bloom of life has fled. 

Mortal paleness there instead; 

Thou before whose presence dread 
Angels trembling bow. 


All thy vigor and thy life 
Fading in this bitter strife; 

Death his stamp on thee has set. 
Hollow and emaciate, 

Faint and drooping there. 

Thou this agony and scorn 
Hast for me a sinner borne 1 
Me, unworthy, all for me! 

With those wounds of love on thee. 
Glorious Face, appear! 


Yet in this thine agony, 

Faithful Shepherd, think of me, 
From whose lips of love divine 
Sweetest draughts of life are mine, 
Purest honey flows; 

All unwmrthy of thy thought, 
Guilty, yet reject me not; 

Unto me thy head incline,— 

Let that dying head of thine 
In my arms repose! 


Let me time communion know 
With thee in thy sacred woe, 
Counting all beside but dross, 
Dying with thee on thy cross;— 
’Neath it will I die! 

Thanks to thee with every breath 
Jesus, for thy bitter death; 

Grant thy guilty one this prayer; 
When my dying hour is near, 
Gracious God, be nigh! 




THEKLA ’S STOHY 


123 


When my dying hour must be, 

Be not absent then from me; 

In that dreadful hour, I pray, 

Jesus come without delay, 

See, and set me free! 

When thou biddest me depart, 
Whom I cleave to with my heart, 
Lover of my soul, be near, 

With thy saving cross appear,— 
Show thyself to me! 


XV. 

THEKLA’S STORY. 

Wittenberg, April 2,1521. 

Dr. Luther is gone. We all feel like 
a family bereaved of our father. 

The professors and chief burghers, with 
numbers of the students, gathered around 
the door of the Augustinian Convent this 
morning to bid him farewell. Gottfried 
Reichenbach was near as he entered the 
carriage, and heard him say, as he turned 
to Melancthon, in a faltering voice, “ Should 
I not return, and should my enemies put 
me to death, 0 my brother, cease not to 
teach and to abide steadfastly in the truth. 
Labor in my place, for 1 shall not be able 
to labor myself. If you be spared it 
matters little that I perish.” 

And so he drove off. And a few minutes 
after, we, who were waiting at the door, 
saw him pass. He did not forget to smile 
at Else and her little ones, or to give a word 
of farewell to our dear blind father as he 
passed us. But there was a grave stead¬ 
fastness in his countenance that made our 
hearts full of anxiety. As the usher with 
the imperial standard who preceded him, 
and then Dr. Luther’s carriage, disappeared 
round a corner of the street, our grand¬ 
mother, whose chair had been placed at the 
door that she might see him pass, murmur¬ 
ed, as if to herself,— 

“ Yes. it was with just such a look they 
went to the scaffold and the stake when I 
was young.” 

I could see little, my eyes were so blinded 
with tears; and when our grandmother said 
this, I could bear it no longer, but ran up 
to my room, and here I have been ever 
since. My mother aud Else and all of 
them say I have no control over my feel¬ 
ings; and I am afraid 1 have not. But it 
seems' to me as if every one I lean my heart 
on were always taken away. First there 
Was Eva. She always understood me, 


helped me to Uhdferstand myself; did not 
laugh at my perplexities as childish, did not 
think my over-eagerness was always temper, 
but met my blundering efforts to do right. 
Different as she was from me (different as 
an angel from poor bewildered blundering 
giant Christopher in Else’s old legend), she 
always seemed to come down to my level 
and see my difficulties from where I stood, 
and so helped me over them; whilst every 
one else sees them from above, and wonders 
any one can think such trifles troubles at all. 
Not, indeed, that my dear mother and Else 
are proud, or mean to look down on any 
one; but Else is so unselfish, her whole life 
is so bound up in others, that she does not 
know what more wilful natures have to 
contend with. Besides, she is now out of 
the immediate circle of our everydayjife at 
liome. Then our mother is so gentle; she 
is frightened to think what sorrows life may 
bring me with the changes that must come, 
if little things give me such joy or grief 
now. I know she feels for me often mbre 
than she dares to let me see; but she is 
always thinking of arming me for the trials 
she believes must come, by teaching me to 
be less vehement and passionate about trifles 
now. But I am afraid it is useless. I think 
every creature must" suffer according to its 
nature; and if God has made our capacity 
for joy or sorrow deep, we cannot fill up 
the channel and say, “ Henceforth 1 will 
feel so far, and no further.” The waters 
are there ,—soon they will recover for them¬ 
selves the old choked up courses; and mean¬ 
time they will overflow. Eva also used to 
say, “ that our armor must grow with our 
growth, and our strength with the strength 
of our conflicts; and that there is only one 
shield which does this, the shield of faith, 
—a living daily trust in a living ever-present 
God.” 

But Eva went away. And then Nix died. 
I suppose if I saw any child now mourning 
over a dog as I did over Nix, I should won¬ 
der much as they all did at me then. But 
Nix was not only a dog to me. He was 
Eisenach and my childhood; and a whole 
world of love and dreams seemed to die for 
me with Nix. 

To all the rest of the world I was a little, 
vehement girl of fourteen; to Nix I was 
mistress, protector, everything. It was 
weeks before I could bear to come in at the 
front door, where he used to watch for me 
with his wistful eyes, and bound with cries 







124 


THE SC1I0XBERG-COTTA FAMILY. 


of joy to meet me. I used to creep in at 
the garden gate. 

And then Nix’s death was the first ap¬ 
proach of Death to me. and the dreadful 
power was no less a power because its 
shadow fell first for me on a faithful dog. 
I began dimly to feel that life, which be¬ 
fore that seemed to be a mountain-path 
always mounting and mounting through 
golden mists to 1 know not what heights, 
of beauty and joy, did not end on "the 
heights, but in a dark unfathomed abyss, 
and that however dim its course might be, 
it has, alas, no mists, or uncertainty around 
the nature of its close, but ends certainly, 
obviously, and universally, in death. 

I could not tell anyone what I felt. I 
did not know myself. How can we under¬ 
stand a labyrinth until we are through it? 
1 did not even know it was a labyrinth. I 
only knew that a light had passed away 
from everything and a shadow had fallen 
in its place. 

Then it was that Dr. Luther spoke to me 
of the other world, beyond death, which 
God would certainly make more full and 
beautiful than this ;—the world on which 
the shadow of Death can never come, 
because it lies in the eternal sunshine, on 
the other side of death, and all the shadows 
fall on this side. That was About the time 
of my first communion, and I saw much of 
Di*. Luther, and heard him preach. I did 
not say much to him, but he let down a 
light into my heart which, amidst all its 
wanderings and mistakes, will, I believe, 
never go out. 

He made me understand something of 
what our dear heavenly Father is, and that 
willing but unequalled Sufferer—that gra¬ 
cious Saviour who gave himself for our sins, 
even for mine. And he made me feel that 
God would understand me better than any 
one, because love always understands, and 
the greatest love understands best, and God 
is love. 

Else and I spoke a little about it some- 
limes, but not much. I am still a child to 
Else and to all of them ,being the youngest, 
and so much less self-controlled than j; 
ought to be. Fritz understood it best; at 
least, I could speak to him more freely,—I 
do not know why. Perhaps, some hearts 
are ma.d e to answer naturally to eacTToTTTei', 
just as some of the furniture always vibrates 
when 1 touch a particular string of the lute, 
while nothing else in the room seems to feel 


it. Perhaps, too, sorrow deepens the heart 
wonderfully, and opens a channel into the 
depths of all other hearts. And I am sure 
Fritz has known very deep sorrow. What, 
1 do not know; and I would not for the 
world try to find out. If there is a secret 
chamber in his heart, which he cannot bear 
to open to any one, when I think his thoughts 
are there, would I not turn aside my eyes 
and creep softly away, that he might never 
know I had found it. out ? 

The innermost sanctuary of his heart is, 
however, I know, not a chamber of dark¬ 
ness and death, but a holy place of daylight, 
for God is there. 

Hours and hours Fritz and I spoke of Dr 
Luther, and what he had done for us both; 
more, perhaps for Fritz than even for me, 
because he had suffered more. It seems to me 
as if we and thousands besides in the world 
had been worshiping before an altar-pic¬ 
ture of our Saviour, which we had been told 
was painted by a great master after a 
heavenly pattern. But all we could see 
was a grim, hard, stern countenance of one 
sitting on a judgment throne; in his hand 
lightnings, and worse lightnings buried in 
the cloud of his severe and threatening 
brow. And then, suddenly we heard Dr. 
Luther's voice behind us, saying, in his 
ringing, inspiriting tones, “ Friends, what 
are you doing ? That is not the right paint¬ 
ing. These are only the boards whtcli hide 
the master’s picture.” And so saying, he 
drew aside the terrible image on which we 
had been hopelessly gazing, vainly trying 
to read some traces of tenderness and beauty 
there. And all at once the real picture was 
revealed to us, the picture of the real Christ, 
with the look on his glorious face which he 
had on the cross, when he said of his mur¬ 
derers, “Father, forgive them; they know 
not what they do;” and to his mother, 
“ Woman, behold thy son;” or to the sinful 
woman who washed his feet, “Go in 
peace.” 

Fritz and I also spoke very often of Eva. 
At least, he liked me to speak of her while 
he listened. And I never weary of speak¬ 
ing of our Eva. 

But then Fritz went away. And now it 
is many weeks since we have heard from 
him; and the last tidings we had were that 
little note from the convent-prison at Mainz! 

And now Dr. Luther is gone—gone to the 
stronghold of his enemies—gone, perhaps 
as our grandmother says to martyrdom! 






THEKLA'S STORY. 


125 


And who will keep that glorious revela¬ 
tion of tiie true, loving pardoning God open 
for us,—with a steady hand keep open those 
false shutters, now that he is withdrawn? 
Dr. Melancthon may do as well for the 
learned, for the theologians; but who will 
replace Dr. Luther to us, to the people, to 
working men and eager youths, and to 
women and to children? Who will make 
us feel as he does that religion is not a 
study, or a profession, or a system of doc¬ 
trines, but life in God ; that prayer is not, 
as lie said, an ascension of the heart as a 
spiritual exercise into some vague airy 
heights, but the lifting of the heart to Ood, 
to a heart which meets us, cares for us, 
loves us inexpressibly ? Who will ever 
keep before us as he does that “ Our 
Father,” which makes all the vest of the 
Lord’s Prayer and all prayers possible and 
helpful ? No wonder that mothers held 
out their children to receive his blessing as 
lie left us, and then went home weeping, 
whilst even strong men brushed away tears 
from their eyes. 

It was true, Dr. Bugenhagen, who has 
escaped from persecution in Pomerania, 
preaches fervently in his pulpit; and Arch¬ 
deacon Carlstadt is full of fire, and Dr. 
Melancthon full of light; and many good, 
wise men are.left. But Dr. Luther seemed 
the heart and soul of all. Others might say 
wiser things, and he might say many things 
others would be too wise to say, but it is 
through Dr. Luther’ heart that God has 
revealed his heart and his word to thou¬ 
sands in our country, and no one can ever 
be to us what he is. 

Day and night we pray for his safety. 

April 15. __ 

Christopher has returned from Erfurt, 
where he heard Dr. Luther preach. 

He told us that in many places his prog¬ 
ress was like that of a beloved prince 
through his dominions; of a prince who 
was going out to’some great battle for his 
land. 

Peasants blessed him; poor men and 
women thronged around him and entreated 
him not to trust his precious life among his 
enemies. One aged priest at Nuremburg 
brought out to him a portrait of Savonarola, 
the good priest whom the Pope burned at 
Florence not forty years ago. One aged 
widow came to him and said her parents had 
told her God would send a deliverer to break 
the yoKe of Rome, and she thanked Go 1 


she saw him before she died. At Erfurt 
sixty burghers and professors rode out some 
miles to escort him into the city. There, 
where he had relinquished all earthly pros¬ 
pects to beg bread as a monk through the 
streets, the streets were thronged with 
grateful men and women, who welcomed 
him as their liberator from falsehood and 
spiritual tyranny. 

Christopher heard him preach in the 
church of the Augustinian Convent, where 
he had* (as Fritz told me) suffered such 
agonies of conflict. He stood there now an 
excommunicated man, threatened with 
death; but he stood there as victor, through 
Christ, over the tyranny and lies of Satan. 
He seemed entirely to forget his own dan¬ 
ger in the joy of the eternal salvation he 
came to proclaim. Not a word, Christopher 
said, about himself, or the Diet, or the 
Pope’s bull, or the Emperor, but all about 
the way a sinner may be saved, and a be¬ 
liever may be joyful. ‘‘There are two 
kinds of works,” he said; “ external works, 
our own works. These are worth little. 
One man builds a church; another makes a 
pilgrimage to St. Peter’s; a third fasts, puts 
on the hood, goes barefoot. All these 
works are nothing, and will perish. Now, 
I will tell you what is the true good work. 
God hath raised again a man, the Lord 
Jesus Christ, in order that he may crush 
death, destroy sin, shut the gates of hell. 
This is the work of salvation. The devil 
believed he had the Lord in his power when 
he beheld him between two thieves, suffer¬ 
ing the most shameful martyrdom, accursed 
both of heaven and man. But God put 
forth his might, and annihilated death, sin, 
and hell. Christ hath won the victory. 
This is the great news! And we are saved 
by his work, not by our works. The Pope 
says something very different. But I tell 
you the holy Mother of God herself has been 
saved, not by her virginity, nor by her ma¬ 
ternity, nor by her purity, nor by hr 1 
works, but solely by means of faith, and l 
the work of God.” 

As he spoke the gallery in which Chrk 
topher stood listening cracked. Many wen 
greatly terrified, and even attempted t< 
rush out. Dr. Luther stopped a moment 
and then stretching out his hand said, 1 
his clear, firm voice, ‘‘Fear not, there is no 
danger. The devil would thus hinder the 
preaching of the Gospel, but lie will not 
succeed.” Th returning to his text, h 








125 


THE SOHONBERG-COTTA FAMILY. 


said, “Perhaps yon will say to me, ‘You 
speak to us much about faith, teach us 
how we may obtain it.’ Yes, indeed, that 
is what I desire to teach you. Our Lord 
Jesus Christ lias said, ‘ Peace be unto you. 
Behold my hands.' And this is as if he 
said, ‘O man, it is I alone who have taken 
away thy sins, and who have redeemed 
thee, and now thou hast peace , saith the 
Lord.’ ” 

And he concluded,— 

“ Since God has saved us, let us so order 
our works that he may take pleasure therein. 
Art thou rich ? Let thy goods be serviceable 
to the poor. Art thou poor? Let thy 
services be of use to the rich. If thy labors 
are useless to all but thyself, the services 
thou pretendest to render to God are a mere 
lie.” 

Christopher left Dr. Luther at Erfurt. 
He said many tried to persuade the doctor 
not to venture to Worms; others reminded 
him of John Huss, burned in spite of the 
safe-conduct. And as he went, in some 
places the papal excommunication was 
affixed on the walls before his eyes, but lie 
said, “ If I perish, the truth will not.” 

And nothing moved him from his purpose. 
Christopher was most deeply touched with 
that sermon. He says the text, “Peace be 
unto you; and when he had so said Jesus 
showed unto them his hands and his side,” 
rang through his heart all the way home to 
Wittenberg, through the forest and the 
plain. The pathos of the clear true voice 
we may never hear again writes them on 
his heart; and more than that, I trust, 
the deeper pathos of the voice which 
uttered the cry of agony once on the cross 
for us,—the agony which won the peace. 

Yes; when Dr. Luther speaks he makes 
us feel we have to do with persons, not 
with things,—with the devil who hates us, 
with God who loves us, with the Saviour 
who died for us. It is not holiness only 
and justification, or sin and condem¬ 
nation. It is we sinning and condemned, 
Christ suffering for us, and God justifying 
and loving us. It is all I and thou. He 
brings us face to face with God, not merely 
sitting serene on a distant imperial throne, 
frowning in terrible majesty, or even smil¬ 
ing in gracious pity, but coming down to 
us close, seeking us, and caring, caring 
unutterably much, that we, even we, should 
be saved. 

I never knew, until Dr. Luther drove out 


of Wittenberg, and the car with the cloth 
curtains to protect him from the weather 
which the town had provided, passed out of 
sight, and I saw the tears gently flowing 
down my mother’s face, how much she 
loved and honored him. 

She seems almost as anxious about him as 
about Fritz; and she did not reprove me 
that night when she came in and found me 
weeping by my bed. She only drew me to 
her and smoothed down my hair, and said, 
“ Poor little Thekla ! God will teach us both 
how to have none other gods but himself. 
He will do it very tenderly; but neither thy 
mother nor thy Saviour can teach thee this 
lesson without many a bitter tear. 

FRITZ’S STORY. 

Ebernburg, April 2, 1526. 

A chasm has opened between me and my 
monastic life I have been in the prison, 
and in the prison have I received at last, in 
full, my emancipation. The ties I dreaded 
impatiently to break have been broken for 
me, and I am a monk no longer. 

1 could not but speak to inj r brethren in 
the convent of the glad tidings which had 
brought me such joy. It is as impossible 
for Christian life not to deffuse itself as that 
living water should not flow, or that flames 
should not rise. Gradually a little band of 
Christ’s freedmen gathered around me. At 
first 1 did not speak to them much of Dr. 
Luther’s writings. My purpose was to show 
them that Luther’s doctrine was not his 
own, but God’s. 

But the time came when Dr. Luther’s 
name was on every lip. The bull of ex¬ 
communication went forth against him from 
the Vatican. His name was branded as 
that of the vilest of heretics by every 
adherent of the Pope. In many churches, 
especially those of the Dominicans, the 
people were summoned by the great bells to 
a solemn service of anathema, where the 
whole of the priests, gathered at the altar 
in the darkened building, pronounced the 
terrible words of doom, and then, flinging 
down their blazing torches extinguished 
them on the stone pavement, as hope, they 
said, vvas extinguished by the anathema for 
the soul of the accursed. 

At one of these services I was accidentally 
present. And mine was not the only heart 
which glowed with burning indignation to 
| hear that worthy name linked with those of 
' apostates and heretics, and held up to uni' 




FRITZ'S STORY. 


127 


verbal execration. But, perhaps, in no heart 
there did it enkindle such a fire as in mine. 
Because I knew the source from which 
those curses came, how lightly, how care¬ 
lessly those firebrands were flung; not 
fiercely, by the fanaticism of blinded con¬ 
sciences, but daintily and deliberately, by 
crrtel, reckless hands, as a matter of diplo¬ 
macy and policy, by those who cared them¬ 
selves neither for God’s curse nor his bless¬ 
ing. And X knew also the heart which 
they were meant to wound; how loyal, how 
tender, how true; how slowly, and with 
what pain Dr. Luther had learned to believe 
the idols of his youth a lie; with what a 
wrench, when the choice at last had to be 
made between the word of God and the 
voice of the Church, he had clung to the 
Bible, and let the hopes, and trust, and 
friendships of earlier days be torn from him; 
what anguish that separation still cost him; 
how willingly, as a humble little child, at 
the sacrifice of anything but truth and 
human souls, he would have flung himself 
again on the bosom of that Church to whom, 
in his fervent youth, he had offered up all 
that makes life dear. 

“ They curse , hut bless Thou .” 

The words came unbidden into my heart, 
and almost unconsciously from my lips. 
Around me I heard more than one 

Amen;” but at the same time I became 
aware that I was watched by malignant 
eyes. 

After the publication of the excom¬ 
munication, they publicly burned the writ¬ 
ings of Dr. Luther in the great square. 
Mainz was the first city in Germany where 
the indignity was offered him. 

Mournfully I returned to my convent. 
In the cloisters of our Order the opinions 
concerning Luther are much divided. The 
writings or St. Augustine have kept the 
truth alive in many hearts amongst us; and 
besides this, there is the natural bias to one 
of our own name, and the party opposition 
to the Dominicans, Tetzel and Eck, Dr. 
Luther’s enemies. Proabably there are few 
Augustinian convents in which there are 
not two opposite parties in reference to Dr. 
Luther. 

In speaking of the great truths, of God 
freely justifying the sinner because Christ 
died (the Judge acquitting because the 
Judge himself had suffered for the guilty), 
I had endeavored to trace them, as I have 
said, beyond all human words to their 


divine authority. But now, to confess Lu¬ 
ther seemed to me to have become identical 
with confessing Christ. It is the truth 
which is assailed in any age which tests our 
fidelity. It is to confess we are called, not 
merely to profess. If I profess, with the 
loudest voice and the clearest exposition, 
every portion of the truth of God except 
precisely that little point which the world 
and the devil are at that moment attacking, 
I am not confessing Christ, however boldly 
I may be professing Christianity. Where 
the battle rages the loyalty of the soldier is 
proved; and to be steady on all the battle¬ 
field besides is mere flight and disgrace to 
him if he flinches at that one point. 

It seems to me also that, practically, the 
contest in every age of conflict ranges usually 
round the person of one faithful, God-sent 
man, whom to follow loyally is fidelity to 
God. In the days of the first Judaizing 
assault on the early Church, that man was 
St. Paul. In the great Arian battle, this man 
was Athanasius—“ Athanasius contra mun- 
dum .” In our days, in our land, I believe 
it is Luther; and to deny Luther would be 
for me, who learned the truth from his lips, 
to deny Christ. Luther, I believe, is the 
man whom God has given to his Church in 
Germany in this age. Luther, therefore, I 
will follow—not as a perfect example, but 
as a God-appointed leader. Men can never 
be neutral in great religious contests; and 
if, because of the little wrong in the right 
cause, or the little evil in the good man, we 
refuse to take the side of right, we are, by 
that very act, silently taking the side of 
wrong. 

When I came back to the convent I found 
the storm gathering. I was asked if I pos¬ 
sessed any of Dr. Luther’s writings. I con¬ 
fessed that I did, It was demanded that 
they should be given up. I said they could 
be taken from me, but I would not willingly 
give them up to destruction, because I be¬ 
lieved they contained the truth of God. Thus 
the matter ended until we had each retired 
to our cells for the night, when one of the 
older monks came to me and accused me of 
secretly spreading Lutheran heresy among 
the brethren. 

I acknowledged I had diligently, but not 
secretly, done all I could to spread among 
the brethren the truths contained in Dr. 
Luther’s books, although not in his words, 
but in St. Paul’s. A warm debate ensued;, 
which ended in the monk angrily leaving 






128 


THE sciiomERG-COTTA FAMILY. 


the cell, saying that means would be found 
to prevent the further diffusion of this 
poison. 

The next day I was taken into the prison 
where John of Wesel died; the heavy bolts 
were drawn upon me, and I was left in 
solitude. 

As they left, the monk with whom I had 
the discussion of the previous night said, 
“In this chamber, not forty years since, a 
heretic such as Martin Luther died.” 

The words were intended to produce 
wholesome fear, they acted as a bracing 
tonic. The spirit of the conqueror who had 
seemed to be defeated there, but now stood 
with the victorious palm before the Lamb, 
seemed near me. The Spirit of the truth for 
which he suffered was with me, and in the 
solitude of that prison I learned lessons 
years might not have taught me elsewhere. 

No one except those who have borne 
them know how strong are the fetters which 
bind us to a false faith, learned at our 
mother’s knee, and rivetted on us by the 
sacrifices of years. Perhaps I should never 
have been able to break them. For me, as 
for thousands of others, they were rudely 
broken by hostile hands. But the blows 
were the accolade which smote me from a 
monk into a knight and soldier of my Lord. 

Yes; there I learned that these vows 
whic have bound me for so many years are 
bonds, not to God, but to a lying tyranny. 
The only true vows, as Dr. Luther says, 
are the vows of our baptism—to renounce 
the world, the flesh, and the devil, as sol¬ 
diers of Christ. The only divine Order is 
the common order of Christianity. All 
other orders are disorder; not confedera¬ 
tions within the Church, but conspiracies 
against it. If, in an army, the troops chose 
to abandon the commander’s arrangement, 
and range themselves, by arbitrary rules, 
in peculiar uniforms, around self-elected 
leaders, they would not be soldiers—they 
would be mutineers. 

God’s order is, I think, the State to em¬ 
brace all men, the Church to embrace all 
Christian men; and the kernel of the State 
and the type of the Church is the family. 

He creates us to be infants, children— 
sons, daughters—husband, wife—father, 
mother. lie says, Obey your parents, love 
your wife, reverence your husband, love 
your children. As children, let the Lord 
at Nazareth be your model; as married, let 
he Lord, who loved the Church better than 


life, be your typer as parents, let the 
heavenly Father be your guide. And if 
we, abandoning every holy name of family 
love he has sanctioned, and every lowly 
duty he has enjoined, choose to band our¬ 
selves anew into isolated conglomerations 
of men or women, connected only by a 
common name and dress, we are not only 
amiable enthusiasts—we are rebels, against 
the divine order of humanity. 

God, indeed, may call some especially to 
forsake father and mother, and wife and 
children, and all things for his dearer love. 
But when he calls to such destinies, it is by 
the plain voice of Providence, or by the 
bitter call of persecution; and then the 
martyr’s or the apostle’s solitary path is as 
much the lowly, simple path of obedience 
as the mother’s or the child’s. The crown 
of the martyr is consecrated by the same 
holy oil which anoints the head of the 
bride, the mother, or the child,—the conse- ■] 
cration of love and of obedience. There is 
none other. All that is not duty is sin; all |j 
that is not obedience is disobedience; all | 
that is not of love is of self; and self j 
crowned with thorns in a cloister is as sel¬ 
fish as self crowned with ivy at a.revel. 

Therefore I abandon cowl and cloister 1 
for ever. I am no more Brother Sebastian, 1 
of the order of the Eremites of St. Augus- 1 
tine. I am Friedrich Cotta, Margaret 1 
Cotta’s son, Else and Thekla’s brother I 
Fritz. 1 am no more a monk. I am a \ 
Christian. I am no more a vowed Augus- 1 
tinian. 1 am a baptized Christian, dedi¬ 
cated to Christ from the arms of my I 
mother, united to him by the faith of my I 
manhood. Henceforth I will order my life 1 
by no routine of ordinances imposed by the $ 
will of a dead man hundreds of years since 
But day by day I will seek to yield myself* ; 
body, soul, and spirit, to the living will of 
my almighty, loving God, saying to him 
morning by morning, “ Give me this day * 
my daily bread. Appoint to me this day 
my daily task.” And he will never fail to i 
hear, however often I may fail to ask. 

I had abundance of time for those 
thoughts in my prison; for during the three 
weeks I lay there I had, with the exception 
of the bread and water which were silently 
laid inside the door every morning, but two 
visits. And these were from my friend the 
aged monk who had first told me about 1 
John of Wesel. 

The first time he came (he said) to per- 






FRITZ'S STORY. 


129 


Biuulc me to recant. But whatever he in¬ 
tended, he said little about recantation— 
much more about his own weakness, which 
hindered him from confessing the same 
truth. 

The second time he brought me a disguise, 
and told me he had provided the means for 
my escape that very night. Whey, there¬ 
fore, I heard the echoes of the heavy bolts 
ofe the great doors die away through 
th^ long stone corridors, and listened till 
th e last tramp of feet ceased, and door after 
door of the various cells was closed, and 
every sound was still throughout the build¬ 
ing, I laid aside my monk’s cowl and frock, 
and put on the burgher dress provided for 
me. 

To me it was a glad and solemn cere¬ 
mony, and, alone in my prison, I prostrated 
myself on the stone floor, and thanked Him 
wiio, by his redeeming death and the emanci¬ 
pating word of his free Spirit, had made me 
a freeman, nay, infinitely better, his freed- 
i man. 

The bodily freedom to which I looked 
forward was to me a light boon indeed in 
j comparison with the liberty of heart already 
mine. The putting on this common garb 
I of secular life was to me like a solemn in- 
j vestiture with the freedom of the city and 
I the empire of God. Henceforth I was not 
! to be a member of a narrow, separated 
I class, but of the common family; po more 
j to .freeze alone on a height, but to tread the 
lowly path of common duty; to help my 
; brethren, not as men at a sumptuous table 
throw crumbs to beggars and dbgs, but to 
live amongst them—to share my bread of 
life with them; no longer as the forerunner 
1 in the wilderness, but, like the Master, in 
the streets, and highways, and homes of 
,i men; assuming no nobler name than man 

I j created in the image of God, born in the 
ill image of Adam; aiming at no loftier title 
y than Christian, redeemed by the blood of 
"j Christ, and created anew, to be conformed 
° | to his glorious image. Yes, as the symbol 

of a freedman, as the uniform of a soldier, 
* as the armor of a sworn knight at once 
e freeman and servant, was that lowly burgh- 

II er’s dress to me; and yvith a joyful heart, 
)' when the aged monk came to me again, I 
0 stepped after him, leaving my monk’s frock 
■ lying in the corner of the cell, like the husk 
[lt of that old lifeless life. 

In vain did I endeavor to persuade my 
liberator to accompany me in my flight. 


“The world would be a prison to me, 
brother,” lie said with a sad smile. “ All I 
loved in it are dead; and what would I do 
there, with the body of an old man and the 
helpless inexperience of a child ? Fear not 
forme,” he added; “I also shall, I trust, 
one day dwell in a home, but not on earth.” 

And so we parted, he returning to the 
convent, and I taking my way, by river and 
forest, to this castle of the noble knight, 
Franz von Sickingen, on a steep height at 
the angle formed by the junction of two 
rivers. 

JVIy silent weeks of imprisonment had 
been weeks of busy life in the world out¬ 
side. When 1 reached this castle of Ebern- 
burg, I found the whole of its inhabitants 
in a ferment about the summoning of Dr. 
Luther to Worms. His name, and my re¬ 
cent imprisonment for his faith, were a 
sufficient passport to the hospitality of the 
castle, and I was welcomed most cordially. 

It was a great contrast to the monotonous 
routine of the convent and the stillness of 
the prison. All was life and stir; eager de¬ 
bates as to what it would be best to do for 
Dr. Luther; incessant coming and going of 
messengers on horse and foot between 
Ebernburg and Worms, where the Diet is 
already sitting, and where the good knight 
Franz spends much of his time in attend¬ 
ance on the Emperor. 

Ulrich von Hutten is also here, from time 
to time, vehement in his condemnation of 
the fanaticism of monks and the lukewarm¬ 
ness of princes; and Dr. Bueer, a disciple 
of Dr. Luther’s, set free from the bondage 
of Rome by his healthful words at the great 
conference of the Augustinians at Heidel¬ 
berg. 

April 30,1521. 

The events of an age seem to have been 
crowded into the last month. A few days 
after I wrote last, it was decided to send a 
deputation to Dr. Luther, who was then 
rapidly approaching Worms, entreating 
him not to venture into the city, but to 
turn aside to Ebernburg. The Emperor’s 
confessor, Glapio, had persuaded the 
knight von Sickingen and the chaplain 
Bucer that all might easily be arranged, if 
Dr. Luther only avoided the fatal step of 
appearing at the Diet. 

A deputation of horsemen was therefore 
sent to intercept the doctor on his way, and 
to conduct him, if he would consent, tp 








130 


TI1E SC HONE ERG-COTTA FAMILY. 


Ebernburg, the “ refuge and hostelry of 
righteousness," as it has been termed. 

I accompanied the little band, of which 
Dr. Bucer was to be chief spokesman. I 
did not think Dr. Luther would come. 
Unlike the rest of the party, I had known 
him not only when he stepped on the great 
stage of the world as the antagonist of 
falsehood, but as the simple, straightfor¬ 
ward, obscure monk. And I knew that the 
step which to others seemed so great, lead¬ 
ing him from safe obscurity into perilous 
pre-eminence before the eyes of all Chris¬ 
tendom, was to him no great momentary 
effort, but simply one little step in the path 
of obedience and lowly duty which he had 
been endeavoring to tread so many years. 
But 1 feared. T distrusted Glapio, and 
believed that all this earnestness on the part 
of the papal party to turn the doctor aside 
was not for his sake, but for then* own. 

1 needed not, at least, have distrusted 
Dr. Luther, Bucer entreated him with the 
eloquence of affectionate solicitude ; his 
faithful friends and fellow-travellers, Jonas, 
Amsdorf, and Schurff, wavered, but Dr. 
Luther did not hesitate an instant. He was 
in the path of obedience. The next step was 
as unquestionable and essential as all the 
rest, although, as he had once said, “ it led 
through flames which extended from Worms 
to Wittenberg, and raged up to heaven." 
He did not, however, use any of these for¬ 
cible illustrations now, natural as they were 
to him. He simply said,— 

“ I continue my journey. If the Empe¬ 
ror’s confessor has anything to say to me, he 
can say it at Worms. I will go to the place 
to which I htive been summoned.” 

And he went on, leaving the friendly 
deputation to return baffled to Ebernburg. 

I did not leave him. As we went on the 
way, some of those who had accompanied 
him told me through what fervent greetings 
and against what vain entreaties of tearful 
affection he had pursued his way thus far; 
how many had warned him that he was 
going r<> the stake, and had wept that they 
should <■•<• his face no more ; how through 
much bodily weak ness and suffering, through 
acclamations and tears, lie had passed on 
simply and steadfastly, blessing little chil¬ 
dren in the schools he visited, and telling 
them to search the Scriptures ; comforting 
the timid and aged, stirring up the hearts 
of all to faith and prayer, and by his cour¬ 


age and trust more than once turning ene¬ 
mies into friends. 

“Are you the man who is to overturn the 
popedom?” said a soldier, accosting him 
rather contemptuously at a halting-place ; 
“ how will you accomplish that?" 

“ I rely on Almighty God," he replied, 
“ whose -orders I have." 

And the soldier replied reverently,— 

“ 1 serve the Emperor Charles ; your 
Master is greater than mine." 

One more assault awaited Dr. Luther 
before he reached his destination. It came 
through friendly lips. When he arrived 
near Worms, a messenger came riding rap¬ 
idly towards us from his faithful friend 
Spalatin, the Elector’s chaplain, and im¬ 
plored him on no account to think of en¬ 
tering the city. 

“ The doctor’s old fervor of expression 
returned at such a temptation meeting him 
so near the goal. 

“ Go tell your master," he said, “ that if 
there were at Worms as many devils as 
there are tiles on the roofs, yet would I 
go in." 

And he went in. A hundred cavaliers 
met him near the gates, and escorted him 
within the city. Two thousand people were 
eagerly awaiting him, and pressed to see 
him as he passed through the streets. Not 
all friends. Fanatical Spaniards were among 
them, who had torn his books in pieces from 
the book-stalls, and crossed themselves when 
they looked at him, as if he had been the 
devil; baffled partisans of the Pope: and on 
the other hand, timid Christians who hoped 
all from his courage; men who had waited 
long for this deliverance, had received life 
from his words, and had kept his portrait in 
their homes anti hearts encircled like that of 
a canonized saint with a glory. And through 
the crowd he passed, the only man, per¬ 
haps, in it who did not see Dr. Luther 
through a mist of hatred or of glory, but 
felt himself a solitary, feeble, helpless man; 
leaning only, yet resting securely, on the 
arm of Almighty strength. 

Those who knew him best perhaps won¬ 
dered at him most during those days which 
followed. Not at his courage—that we had 
expected—but at his calmness and modera¬ 
tion. It was this which seemed to me most 
surely the seal of God on that fervent, im¬ 
petuous nature, stamping the work and the 
man as of God. , 

We none of us knew how he would have 



















FRITZ' S STORY . 


181 


answered before that august assembly. At 
his first appearance some of us feared he 
might have been too vehement. The Elec¬ 
tor Frederic could not have been more 
moderate and calm. When asked whether 
he would retract his books, I think there 
were few among us who were not surprised 
at the noble self-restraint of his reply. He 
asked for time. 

“Most gracious Emperor, gracious princes 
and lords,” he said, “with regard to the 
first accusation, 1 acknowledge the books 
enumerated to have been from me. I can¬ 
not disown them. As regards the second, 
seeing that it is a question of the faith and 
the salvation of souls, and of God’s word, 
the most precious treasure in heaven or 
earth, I should act rashly were I to reply 
hastily. I might affirm less than the case 
requires, or more than truth demands, and 
thus offend against that word of Christ, 
4 Whosoever shall deny me before men, him 
will I also deny before my Father who is in 
heaven.’ Wherefore I beseech your impe¬ 
rial majesty, with all submission, to allow 
me time that 1 may reply without doing 
prejudice to the Word of God.” 

lie could afford to be, thought for the time 
what many of his enemies tauntingly de- 
I dared him, a coward, brave in the cell, but 
appalled when he came to face the world. 

During the rest of that day he was full of 
joy; “ like a child,” said some, “ who knows 
not what is before him;” “ like a veteran,” 
i said others, 44 who has prepared everything 
for the battle;” like both, I thought, since 
j the strength of the veteran in the battles of 
God is the strength of the child following 
ji his Father’s eye, and trusting on his Father’s 
f arm. 

A conflict awaited him afterwards in the 
| course of the night, which one of us wit- 
S nessed, and which made him who witnessed 
| it feel no wonder that the imperial presence 
! had no terrors for Luther on the morrow. 

Alone that night our leader fought the 
fight to which all other combats were but as 
! a ° holiday tournament. Prostrate on the 
ground, with sobs and bitter tears, he 
prayed,— 

“ Almighty, everlasting God, how terrible 
this world isl How it would open its javvs 
to devour me, and how weak is my trust in 
thee! The flesh is weak, and the devil is 
strong 1 O thou my God, help me against 
all the wisdom of this world. Do thou the 
1 work. It is for thee alone to do it; for the 


work is thine, not mine. 1 have nothing to 
bring me here. I have no controversy to 
maintain, not I, with the great ones of the 
earth. I too would that my days should 
glide along happy and calmly. But the 
cause is thine. It is righteous, it is eternal. 
0 Lord, help me; thou that art faithful, 
thou that art unchangeable. It is not in 
any man I trust. That were vain indeed. 
All that is in man gives way; all that comes 
from man faileth, 0 God, my God, dost 
thou not hear me ? Art thou dead ? No; 
thou canst not die. Thou art but hiding 
thyself. Thou hast chosen me for this 
work. I know it. Oh, then, arise and 
work. Be thou on my side, for the sake of 
thy beloved Son Jesus Christ, who is my 
defence, my shield, and my fortress. 

44 O Lord, my God, where art thou? 
Come, come; I am ready—ready to forsake 
life for thy truth, patient as a lamb. For 
it is a righteous cause, and it is thine own. 
I will not depart from thee, now nor 
through eternity. And although the world 
should be full of demons; although my 
body, which, nevertheless, is the work of 
thine hands, should be doomed to bite the 
dust, to be stretched upon the rack, cut 
into pieces, consumed to ashes, the soul is 
thine. Yes; for this I have the assurance 
of thy Word. My soul is thine. It will 
abide near thee throughout the endless ages. 
Amen. O God, help thou me! Amen.” 

Ah, how little those who follow know 
the agony it costs to take the first step, to 
venture on the perilous ground no human 
soul around has tried. 

Insignificant indeed the terrors of the 
empire to one who had seen the terrors of 
the Almighty. Pretty indeed are the as¬ 
saults of flesh and blood to him who has 
withstood principalities and powers, and 
the hosts of the angel of darkness. 

At four o’clock the Marshal of the Empire 
came to lead him to his trial. But his real 
hour of trial was over, and calm and joyful 
Dr. Luther passed through the crowded 
streets to the imperial presence. 

As he drew near the door, the veteran 
General Freundsberg,touching his shoulder, 
said— 

44 Little monk, you have before you an 
encounter such as neither I nor any other 
captains have seen the like of even in our 
bloodiest campaigns. But if your cause be 
just, and if you know it to be so, go forward 






132 


THE SCHONBERG-QOTTA FAMILY. 


ill the name of God, and fear nothing. 
God will not forsake you.” 

Friendly heart! he knew not that our 
Martin Luther was coming from his battle¬ 
field, and was simply going as a conqueror 
to declare before men the victory he had 
won from mightier foes. 

And so at last he stood, the monk, the 
peasant’s son, before all the princes of the 
empire, the kingliest heart among them all, 
crowned with a majesty which was incor¬ 
ruptible, because invisible to worldly eyes; 
one against thousands who were bent on 
his destruction; one in front of thousands 
who leant on his fidelity; erect because he 
rested on that unseen arm above. 

The words he spoke that day are ringing 
through all Germany. The closing sentence 
will never be forgotten.— 

“Here I stand, I cannot do otherwise. 
God help me. Amen.” 

To him these deeds of heroism are acts 
of simple obedience; every step inevitable, 
because every step is duty. In this path he 
leans on God’s help absolutely and only. 
And all faithful hearts throughout the land 
respond to his Amen. 

On the other hand, many of the polished 
courtiers and subtle Roman diplomatists 
saw no eloquence in his words, words which 
stirred every true heart to its depths. “ That 
man,” said they, “ will never convince us.” 
How should he ? His arguments were not in 
their language, nor addressed to them, but 
to true and honest hearts; and to such they 
spoke. 

To men with whom eloquence means 
elaborate fancies decorating corruption or 
veiling emptiness, what could St. Paul 
seem but a “ babbler ?” 

All men of earnest purpose acknowledged 
their force,—enemies, by indignant clamor 
that he should be silenced; friends, by 
wondering gratitude to God, who had stood 
by him. 

It was nearly dark when the Diet broke 
up. As Dr. Luther came out, escorted by 
the imperial officers, a panic spread through 
the crowd collected in the street, and from 
lip to lip was heard the cry,— 

“ They are taking him to - prison.” 

“ They are leading me to my hotel,” said 
the calm voice of him whom this day has 
made the great man of Germany. And 
the tumult subsided. 

Ebernburg, June, 1521. 

Dr. Luther has disappeared 1 Not one 


that I have seen knows at this moment 
where they have taken him* whether he is 
in the hands of friend or foe, whetherjeven 
he is still on earth ! 

We ought to have heard of his arrival 
at Wittenberg many days since. But no 
inquiries can trace him beyond the village 
of Mora in the Tliiiringen forest. There 
he went from Eisenach on his way back to 
Wittenberg, to visit his aged grandmother 
and some of his father’s relations, peasant- 
farmers who live on the clearings of the 
forest. In his grandmother’s lowly home 
he passed the night, and took leave of her 
the next morning, and no one has heard of 
him since. 

We are not without hope that he is in the 
hands of friends; yet fears will mingle with 
these hopes. His enemies are so many and 
so bitter, no means would seem, to many of 
them, unworthy to rid the world of such a 
heretic. 

While he yet remained at Worms the 
Romans strenuously insisted that his ob¬ 
stinacy had made the safe conduct invalid; 
some even of the German princes urged that 
he should be seized; and it wasonly by the 
urgent remonstrances of others, who pro¬ 
tested that they would never suffer such a 
blot on German honor, that he was saved. 

At the same time, the most insiduous 
efforts were made to persuade him to re¬ 
tract, or to resign his safe-conduct, in order 
to show his willingness to abide by the 
issue of a fair discussion. This last effort, 
appealing to Dr. Luther’s confidence in the 
truth for which he was ready to die, had 
all but prevailed with him. But a knight 
who was present when it was made, seeing 
through the treachery, fiercely ejected the 
priest who proposed it from the house. 

Yet through all assaults, insidious or 
open, Dr. Luther remained calm and un¬ 
moved, moved by no threats, ready to lis¬ 
ten to any fair proposition. 

Among all the polished courtiers and 
proud princes and prelates, he seemed to 
me to stand like an ambassador from an 
imperial court among the petty dignitaries 
of some petty province. His manners had 
the dignity of one who has been accus¬ 
tomed to a higher presence than any 
around him, giving to every one the honor 
due to him. indifferent to all personal 
slights, but inflexible on every point that 
concerned the honor of his sovereign. 

Those of us who had known him in ear- 









FRITZ'S STORYS 133 


lier days saw in him all the simplicity, the 
deep earnestness, the childlike delight in 
simple pleasures we had known in him of 
old. It was our old friend Martin Luther, 
but it seemed as if our Luther had come 
back to us from a residence in heaven, such 
a peace and majesty dwelt in all he said. 
One incident especially struck me. When 
the glass he was about to drink of at the 
feast given by the Archbishop of Treves, 
one of the papal party, shivered in his 
hand as he signed the cross over it, and 
his friends exclaimed “poison!” he (so 
ready usually to see spiritual agency in all 
things) quietly observed that the “ glass had 
doubtless broke on account of its having 
been plunged too soon into cold water 
when it was washed.” 

His courage was no effort of a strong 
nature. He" simply trusted in God and 
really was afraid of nothing. 

And now he is gone. 

Whether among friends or foes, in a 
hospitable refuge such as this, or in a 
hopeless secret dungeon, to us for the time 
at least he is dead. No word of sympathy 
or counsel passes between us. The voice 
to which all Germany hushed its breath to 
listen is silenced. 

Under the excommunication of the Pope, 
under the ban of the empire, branded as a 
heretic, sentenced as a traitor, reviled by 
the Emperor’s own edict as “ a fool, a blas¬ 
phemer, a devil clothed in a monk’s cowl,” 
j it is made treason to give him food or 
shelter, and a virtue to deliver him to 
death. And to all this, if he is living, he 
f can utter no word of reply. 

Meantime, on the other hand, every word 
j of his is treasured up and clothed with the 
I sacred pathos of the dying words of a 
father. The noble letter which he wrote 
l to the nobles describing Ins appearance 
before the Diet is treasured in every home. 

Yet some among us derive not a little 
I hope from the last letter he wrote, which 
was to Lucas Cranach, from Frankfort. In 
it he says: 

“ The Jews may sing once more their 
‘ Io ! Io ! ’ but to us also the Easter-day 
will come, and then will we sing Alleluiah. 
A little while we must be silent and suffer. 

‘ A little while,’ said Christ, ‘ and ye shall 
not see me, and again a little while and ye 
shall see me.’ I hope it may be so now. 
But the will of God, the best mail things 


be done in this as in heaven and earth. 
Amen.” 

Many of us think this is a dim hint to 
those who love him that lie knew what was 
before him, and that after a brief conceal¬ 
ment for safety, “ till this tyranny be over¬ 
past,” he will be amongst us once more. 

I, at least, think so, and pray that to him 
this time of silence may be a time of close 
intercourse with God, from which he may 
come forth refreshed and strengthened to 
guide and help us all. 

And meantime, a work, not without peril, 
but full of sacred joy, opens before me. I 
have been supplied by the friends of Dr. 
Luther’s doctrine with copies of his books 
and pamphlets, both in Latin and German, 
which I am to sell as a hawker through the 
length and breadth of Germany, and in any 
other lands I can penetrate. 

I am to start to-morrow, and to me my 
pack and strap are burdens more glorious 
than the armor of a prince of the empire; 
my humble pedlar’s coat and staff are vest¬ 
ments more sacred than the robes of a 
cardinal or the wands of a pilgrim. 

For am I not a pilgrim to the city which 
hath foundations ? Is not my yoke the 
yoke of Christ? and am I not distributing, 
among thirsty and enslaved men, the water 
of life and the truth which sets the heart 
free ? 


XYI. 

FRITZ’S STORY. 

Black Forest, May, 1521. 

The first week of my wandering life is 
over. . To-day my way lay through the 
solitary paths of the Black Forest, which, 
eleven years ago, I trod with Dr. Martin 
Luther, oivour pilgrimage to Rome. Both 
of us then wore the monk’s frock and cowl. 
Both were devoted subjects of the Pope, 
and would have deprecated, as the lowest 
depth of degradation, his anathema. Yet 
at that very time Martin Luther bore in his 
heart the living germ of all that is now 
agitating men’s hearts irom Pomerania to 
Spain. " He was already a freedman of 
Christ and he knew it. The Holy Scrip¬ 
tures were already to him the one living 
fountain of truth. Believing simply in Him 
who died, the just for the unjust, he had 
received the free pardon of his sins. Pray el 
was to him the confiding petition of a for* 







184 


THE SCIIONBERQ-COTTA FAMILY . 


given child received to the heart of the 
Father, and walking humbly by his side. 
Christ he knew already as the Confessor 
and Priest; the Holy Spirit as the personal 
teacher through his own Word. 

The fetters of the old ceremonial were 
indeed still around him, but only as the 
brown casings still swathe many of the 
swelling buds of the young leaves; while 
others, this May morning, crackled and burst 
as I passed along in the silence through the 
green forest paths. The moment of libera¬ 
tion, to the passer-by, always seems a great, 
sudden effort; but those who have watched 
the slow swelling of the imprisoned bud, 
know that the last expansion of life which 
bursts the scaly cerements is but one 
moment of the imperceptible but incessant 
growth, of which even the apparent death of 
winter was a stage. 

But it is good to live in the spring-time; 
and as I went on, my heart sang with the 
birds and the leaf-buds, “ For me also the 
cerements of winter are burst,—for me 
and for all the land !” 

And as I walked, I sang aloud the 
old Easter hymn which Eva used to love:— 

Pone luctum, Magdalena, 

Et serena lachrymas; 

Non est jam sermonis ccena 
Non cur fleturn exprimas 

Causae mille sunt lsetandi, 

Causae mille exultandi, 

Alleluia resonetl 

Suma risum, Magdalena, 

Frons nitescat lucida; 

Denigravit omnis poena, 

Lux coruscat fulgida; 

Christus nondun liberavit, 

Et de morte triumphavit: 

Alleluia resonetl 

Gaude, plaude Magdalena, 

Tumba Christus exiit; 

Tristis est peracta scena, 

Victor mortis rediit; 

Quern deflebis morientem, 

Nunc arride resurgentem; 

Alleluia resonetl 

Tolle vultum, Magdalena, 

Redivivum obstupe; 

Vide frons quam sit amoena, 

Quinque plagas adspice; 

Fulgent sicut margaritae, 

Ornamenta novae vitae; 

Alleluia resonetl 

Vive, vive, Magdalena 1 
Tua lux reversa est; 

Gaudiis turgescit vena. 

Mortis vis obstersa est; 

Maesti procul sunt dolores, 

Laeti redeant am ores; 

Alleluia resonetl 


Yes, even in the old dark times, heart 
after heart, in quiet homes and secret con¬ 
vent cells, lias doubtless learned this hidden 
joy. But now the world seems learning it. 
The winter has its robbing, with their soli¬ 
tary warblings; but now the spring is here, 
the songs come in choruses,—and thank 
God I am awake to listen ! 

But the voice which awoke this music 
first in my heart, among these very forests 
—and since then, through the grace of God, 
in countless hearts throughout this and all 
lands—what silence hushes it now ? The 
silence of the grave, or only of some friendly 
refuge? In either case, doubtless, it is 
not silent to God. 

I had scarcely finished my hymn, when 
the trees became more scattered and smaller, 
as if they had been cleared not long since; 
and 1 found myself on the edge of a valley, 
on the slopes of which nestled a small vil¬ 
lage, with its spire and belfry rising among 
the wooden cottages, and flocks of sheep 
and goats grazing in the pastures beside the 
little stream which watered it. 

I lifted up my heart to God, that some 
hearts in that peaceful place might wel¬ 
come the message of eternal peace through 
the books I carried. 

As I entered the village, the priest came 
out of the parsonage—and courteously sa¬ 
luted me. 

I offered to show him my wares. 

“ It is not likely there will be anything 
there for me,” he said, smiling. “My days 
are over for ballads and stories such as I 
suppose your merchandise consists of.” 

But when he saw the name of Luther on 
the titlepage of a volume which I showed 
him, his face changed, and he said in a. 
grave voice, “ Do you know what you car¬ 
ry?” 

“I trust I do,” I replied. “I carry 
most of these books in my heart as well as 
on my shoulders.” 

“ But do you know the danger ?” the old 
man continued. “ We have heard that Dr.. 
Luther has been excommunicated by the 
Pope, and laid under the ban of the empire;: 
and only last week, a travelling merchant, 
such as yourself, told us that his body had 
been seen, pierced through with a hundred' 
wounds.” 

“ That was not true three days since,” I 
said. “At least, his best friends at Worms 
knew nothing of it.” 

“ Thank God,” he said; “ for in this vil- 






FRITZ’S STORY . 


135 


la^e we owe that good man much. And 
if,*’ he added timidly, “ he has indeed fallen 
into heresy, it would be well he had time 
to repent.” 

In that village I sold many of my books, 
and left others with the good priest, who 
entertained me most hospitably, and sent me 
on my way with a tearful farewell, com¬ 
pounded of blessings, warnings, and pray¬ 
ers. 

Paris, July , 1521. 

I have crossed the French frontier, and 
have been staying some days in this great, 
gay, learned city. 

In Germany, my books procured me more 
of welcome than of opposition. In some 
cases, even where the local authorities 
deemed it their duty publicly to protest 
against them, they themselves secretly as¬ 
sisted in their distribution. In others, the 
eagerness to purchase, and to glean any 
fragment of information about Luther, drew 
a crowd around me, who, after satisfying 
themselves that I had no news to give 
them of his present state, lingered as long 
as I would speak, to listen' to my narra¬ 
tive of his appearance before the Em- 
: peror at Worms, while murmurs of enthu¬ 
siastic approval, and often sobs and tears, 
testified the sympathy of the people with 
him. In the towns, many more copies of 
j his “Letter to the German Nobles” were 
demanded than I could supply. 

But what touched me most was to see the 
i love and almost idolatrous reverence which 
had gathered around his name in remote 
districts, among the oppressed and toiling 
peasantry. 

I remember especially, in one village, a 
■ fine-looking old peasant farmer taking me 
[ to an inner room where hung a portrait of 
t Luther, encircled with a glory, with a cur- 
1 tain before it. 

I “ See !” he said. “ The lord of that cas- 
I tie” (and he pointed to a fortress on an 
opposite height) “has wrought me and 
I mine many a wrong. Two of my sons 
f .have perished in his selfish feuds, and his 
i huntsmen lay waste my fields as they 
\ choose in the chase; yet, if I shoot a deer, 
I may be thrown into the castle dungeon, 

| as mine have been before. But their reign 
is nearly over now. 1 saw that man at 
Worms. I heard him speak, bold as a lion, 
for the truth, before Emperor, princes, and 
prelates, God has sent us the deliverer; 
and the reign of righteousness will come at 


last, when every man shall have his due.” 

“ Friend,” I said, with an aching heart, 
“ the Deliverer came fifteen hundred years 
ago, but the reign of justice has not come 
to the world yet. The Deliverer was cruci¬ 
fied, and his followers since then have 
suffered, not reigned.” 

“ God is patient,” he said, “ and we have 
been patient long, God knows; but I trust 
the time is come at last.” 

“ But the redemption Dr. Luther pro¬ 
claims,” I said, gently, “ is liberty from a 
worse bondage than that of the nobles, and 
it is a liberty no tyrant, no dungeon, can 
deprive us of—the liberty of the sons of 
God;”—and he listened earnestly whije I 
spoke to him of justification, and the suffer¬ 
ing, redeeming Lord. But at the end he 
said— 

“Yes, that is good news. But 1 trust 
Dr. Luther will avenge many a wrong 
among us yet. They say he was a peas¬ 
ant’s son like me.” 

If 1 were Dr. Luther, and knew that the 
wistful eyes of the oppressed and sorrowful 
throughout the land were turned to me, 1 
should be tempted to say— 

“ Lord, let me die before these oppressed 
and burdened hearts learn how little I can 
help them I” 

For verily there is much evil done under 
the sun. Yet as truly there is healing for 
every disease, remedy for every wrong, and 
rest from every burden, in the tidings Dr. 
Luther brings; but remedy of a different 
kind, I fear, from what too many fondly 
expect. 

It is strange, also, to see how, in these 
few weeks, the wildest tales have sprung up 
and spread in all directions about Dr. 
Luther’s disappearance. Some saj^ he has 
been secretly murdered, and that his 
wounded corpse has been seen; others, that 
he was borne away bleeding through the 
forest to some dreadful doom; while others 
boldly assert that he will re-appear at the 
head of a band of liberators, who will go 
through the length and breadth of the land, 
redressing every wrong, and punishing 
every wrong-doer. 

Truly, if a few weeks can throw such a 
haze around facts, what would a century 
without a written record have done for 
Christianity; or what would that record 
itself have been without inspiration ? 

The country was in some parts very dis¬ 
turbed. In Alsace I came on a secret 







136 


TI1E SCHONBERG-COTTA FAMILY. 


meeting of the peasants, who have bound 
themselves with the most terrible oaths to 
wage war to the death against the nobles. 

More than once I was stopped by a troop 
of horsemen near a castle, and my wares 
searched, to see if they belonged to the 
merchants of some city with whom the 
knight of the castle was at feud; and on oae 
of these occasions it might have fared ill 
with me if a troop of Landsknechts in the 
service of the empire had not appeared in 
time to rescue me and my companions. 

Yet everywhere the name of Luther was 
of equal interest. The peasants believed he 
would rescue them from the tyranny of the 
nobles; and many of the knights spoke of 
him as the assertor of German liberties 
against a foreign yoke. More than one poor 
parish priest welcomed him as the deliverer 
from the avarice of the great abbeys or the 
prelates. Thus, in farmhouse and hut, in 
castle and parsonage, I and my books found 
many a cordial welcome. And all I could 
do was to sell the books, and tell all who 
would listen, that the yoke Luther’s words 
were powerful to break was the yoke of the 
devil, the prince of all oppressors, and that 
the freedom he came to republish was free¬ 
dom from the tyranny of sin and self. 

My true welcome, however, the one which 
rejoiced my heart, was when any said, as 
many did, on sick-beds, in lowly and noble 
homes, and in monasteries— 

“Thank God, these words are in our 
hearts already. They have taught us the 
way to God; they have brought us peace 
and freedom.” 

Or when others said— 

“ I must have that book. This one and 
that one that I know is another man since 
he read Dr. Luther’s words.” 

But if I was scarcely prepared for the 
interest felt in Dr. Luther in our own land, 
true German that he is, still less did I expect 
that his fame would have reached to Paris 
and even further. 

The night before I reached this city I was 
weary with a long day’s walk in the dust 
and heat, and had fallen asleep on a bench 
in the garden outside a village inn, under 
the shade of a trellised vine, leaving my 
pack partly open beside me. When I awoke, 
a grave and dignified-looking man, who, 
from the richness of his dress and arms, 
seemed to be a nobleman, and, from the cut 
of his slashed doublet and mantle, a Span¬ 
iard, sat beside me, deeply engaged in 


reading one of my books. I did not stir at 
first, but watched him in silence. The book 
he held was a copy of Luther’s Commen¬ 
tary on the Galatians, in Latin. 

In a few minutes I moved, and respect¬ 
fully saluted him. 

“ Is this book for sale?” he asked. 

I said it was, and named the price. 

He immediately laid down twice the sum, j 
saying, 1 ‘ Give a copy to some one who | 
cannot buy.” 

I ventured to ask if he had seen it before, .jj 

“ I have,” he said. “ Several copies were 
sent by a Swiss printer, Frobenius, to Castile. 1 
And I saw it before at Venice. It is pro- i 
hibited in both Castile and Venice now. ? 
But 1 have always wished to possess a copy, | 
that I might judge for myself. Do you ; 
know Dr. Luther?” he asked, as he moved 1 
away. 

“ I have known and reverenced him for 
many years,” I said. 

‘ They say his life is blameless, do they 
hot?” lie asked. 

“ Even his bitterest enemies confess it to '■> 
be so,” I replied. 

“lie spoke like a brave man before the | 
Diet,” he resumed; “ gravely and quietly, as j?j 
true men speak who are prepared to abide J 
by their words. A noble of Castile would 
not have spoken with more dignity than ! 
that peasant’s son. The Italian priests ] 
thought otherwise; but the oratory which 
melts girls into tears from pulpits is not the i 
eloquence for the councils of men. That ? 
little monk had learned his oratory in a 
higher school. If you ever see Dr. Luther 
again,” he added, “tell him that some | 
Spaniards, even in the Emperor’s court, 4 
wished him well.” 

And here in Paris I find a little band of 
devout and learned men, Lefevre, Farel, 1 
and Briconnet, bishop of Meaux, actively 
employed in translating and circulating the J j 
writngs of Luther and Melancthon. The 
truth in them, they say, they had learned 1 
before from the book of God itself, namely, 3 
justification through faith in a crucified I] 
Saviour leading to a life devoted to him. I 
But jealous as the French are of admitting j 
the superiority of anything foreign, and 
contemptuously as they look on us un¬ 
polished Germans,, the French priests wel¬ 
come Luther as a teacher and a brother, 
and are as eager to hear all particulars of 
his life as his countrymen in every town 
and quiet village throughout Germany. 






FRITZ'S STORY. 


13T 


They tell me also that the king’s own i 
sister, the beautiful anil learned Duchess 
Margaret of Valois, reads Dr. Luther’s 
writings, and values them greatly. 

Indeed, L sometimes think if he had car¬ 
ried out the intention he formed some years 
since, of leaving Wittenberg for Paris, he 
would have found a noble sphere of action 
here. The people are so frank in speech, 
so quick in feeling and perception; and 
their bright keen wit cuts so much more 
quickly to the heart of a fallacy than our 
sober, plodding, Northern intellect. 

^ASIL. 

Before I left Ebernburg, the knight Ulrich 
von Hutten had taken a warm interest in 
my expedition; had especially recommended 
me to seek out Erasmus, if ever I reached 
Switzerland; and had himself placed some 
copies of Erasmus’ sermons, “Praise of 
Folly,” among my books. 

Personally I feel a strong attachment to 
that brave knight. I can never forget the 
^generous letter he wrote to Luther before 
his appearance at the Diet:—“The Lord 
hear thee in the day of trouble: the name 
of the God of Jacob defend thee. 0 my 
beloved Luther, my revered father, fear 
not; be strong. Fight valiantly for Christ. 
As for me, I also will light bravely. 
Would to God I might see how they knit 
their brows.May Christ pre¬ 

serve you.” 

Yes, to see the baffled enemies knit their 
brows as they did then, would have been a 
triumph to the impetuous soldier, but at 
the time he was prohibited from approach¬ 
ing the Court. Luther’s courageous and 
noble defence tilled him with enthusiastic 
admiration. He declared the doctor to be 
a greater soldier that any of the knights. 
When we heard of Luther’s disappearance 
he would have collected a band of daring 
spirits like himself, and scoured the coun¬ 
try in search of him. Hutten’s objects were 
high and unselfish. He had no mean and 
petty ambitions. With sword and pen lie 
had contended against oppression and hy¬ 
pocrisy. To him the Roman Court was de¬ 
testable, chiefly as a foreign yoke; the cor¬ 
rupt priesthood, as a domestic usurpation. 
He had a high ideal of knighthood, and be¬ 
lieved that his order, enlightened by learn¬ 
ing, and inspired by a free and lofty faith, 
might emancipate Germany and Christen¬ 
dom. Personal danger he despised, and 
personal aims. 


Yet with all his fearlessness and high as¬ 
pirations, I scarcely think he hoped him¬ 
self to be the hero of his ideal chivalry. 
The self-control of the pure true knight 
was too little his. In his visions of a 
Christendom from which falsehood and 
avarice were to be banished, and where 
authority was to reside in an order of ideal 
knights, Franz von Sickingen, the brave 
good lord of Ebernburg, with his devout 
wife Hedwiga, was to raise the standard, 
around which Ulrich and all the true men 
in the land were to rally. Luther, Eras¬ 
mus, and Sickengen, he thought—the types 
of the three orders, learning, knighthood, 
and priesthood,—might regenerate the 
world. 

Erasmus had begun the work with unveil¬ 
ing the light in the sanctuaries of learning. 
Luther had carried it on by diffusing the 
light among the people. The knights must 
complete it by forcibly scattering the pow¬ 
ers of darkness. Conflict is Erasmus’ de¬ 
testation. It is Luther’s necessity. It is 
Hutten’s delight. 

I did not, however, expect much sympa¬ 
thy in my work from Erasmus. It seemed 
to me that Hutten, admiring his clear, lun 
inous genius, attributed to him the lire of 
his own warm and courageous heart. How¬ 
ever, I intended to seek him out at Basil. 

Circumstances saved me the trouble. 

As I was entering the city, with my pack 
nearly empty, hoping to replenish it from 
the presses of Frobenius, an elderly man, 
with a stoop in his shoulders, giving him 
the air of a student, ambled slowly past me, 
clad in a doctor’s gown and hat, edged with 
a broad border of fur. The keen, small 
dark eyes surveyed me and my pack for 
a minute, and then reining in his horse he 
joined me, and said, in a soft voice and 
courtly accent, “We are of the same profes¬ 
sion, friend. “We manufacture, and you 
sell. What have you in your pack ?” 

I took out three of my remaining volumes. 
One was Luther’s ‘Commentary on the 
Galatians;” the others, his “ Treatise on the 
Lord’s Prayer,” and his “ Letter to the 
German Nobles.” 

The rider’s brow darkened slightly, and 
he eyed me suspiciously. 

“Men who supply ammunition to the 
people in times of insurrection seldom do it 
at their own risk,” he said, “ Young man, 
you are on a perilous mission, and would 
do well to count the cost.” 



188 


THE SCHONBERQ-COTTA FAMILY. 


“ I have counted the cost, sir,” I said, 
“ and I willingly brave the peril.” 

“ Well, well,” he replied, “ some are born 
for battlefields, and some for martyrdom ; 
others for neither. Let each keep to his 
calling,— 

‘Nequissimam pacem justissimo bello antifero.’ 

But ‘those who let in the sea on the marshes 
little know where it will spread.’ ” 

This illustration from the Dutch dikes 
awakened my suspicions as to who the rider 
was, and looking at the thin, sensitive, yet 
satirical lips, the delicate, sharply-cut fea¬ 
tures, the palid complexion, and the dark, 
keen eyes I had seen represented in so many 
portraits, I could not doubt with whom I 
was speaking* But I did not betray my 
discovery. # 

“ Dr. Luther has written some good 
things, nevertheless,” he said. “ If he had 
kept to such devotional works as this,” re¬ 
turning to me “ The Lord’s Prayer,” “ he 
might have served his generation quietly and 
well; but to expose such mysteries as are 
treated of here to the vulgar gaze, it is mad¬ 
ness 1” and he hastily closed the “Gala¬ 
tians.” Then glancing at the “ Letter to 
the Nobles,” he almost threw it into my 
hand, saying petulantly,— 

“That pamphlet is an insurrection in 
itself. 

“What other books have you?” he 
asked, after a pause. I drew out my last 
copy of the “ Encomium of Folly.” 

“ Have you sold many of these ?” he 
asked coolly. 

“All but this copy,” I replied. 

“And what did people say of it ?” 

“That depended on the purchasers,” I 
replied. “ Some say the author is the 
wisest and wittiest man of the age, and if 
all knew where to stop as lie does, the 
world would slowly grow into paradise, 
insead of being turned upside down as it is 
now. Others, on the contrary, say that the 
writer is a coward, who has no courage to 
confess the truth he knows. And others 
again, declare the book is worse than any 
of Luther’s, and that Erasmus is the source 
of all mischief in the world, since if he had 
not broken the lock. Luther would never 
have entered the door.” 

“And you think?” he asked 

“I am but a poor pedlar, sir,” 1 said; 
“ but I think there is a long way between 
Pilate’s delivering up the glorious King he 


knew was innocent—perhaps began to see 
might be divine, and St. Peter’s denying 
the Master he loved. And the Lord who 
forgave Peter knows which is which; which 
the timid disciple, and which the cowardly 
friend of His foes, But the eye of man, 
it seems to me, may find it impossible to 
distinguish. I would rather be Luther at 
the Diet of Worms, and under anathema 
and ban, than either.” 

“ Bold words.” he said, “to prefer an 
excommunicated heretic to the prince of 
the apostles.” 

But a shade passed over his face, and 
courteously bidding me farewell, he rode on. 

The conversation seemed to have thrown 
a shadow and chill oveijmy heart. 

After a time, however; the rider slackened 
his pace again, and banned tome to rejoin 
him. 

“Have you friends in Basil?” he asked 
kindly. 

“ None,” I replied ; “ but I have letters 
to the printer Frobenius, and 1 was recom¬ 
mended to seek out Erasmus.” 

“ Who reccommeiidod you to do that ? ” 
he asked. 

“ The good knight Ulrich von Hutten,” 
I replied. 

“ The prince of all turbulent spirits!” he 
murmured gravely. ‘ ‘ Little indeed is there 
in common between Erasmus of Rotter¬ 
dam and that firebrand.” 

“ Ritter Ulrich has the greatest admira¬ 
tion for the genius of Erasmus,” I said, 
“ and thinks that his learning, with the 
swords of a few good knights, and the 
preaching of Luther, might set Christen¬ 
dom right.” 

“ Ulrich von Hutten should set his own 
life right first, was the reply. “ But let us 
leave speaking of Christendom and these 
great projects, which are altogether beyond 
our sphere. Let the the knights set chiv¬ 
alry right, and the cardinals the papacy, 
and the emperor the empire. Let the hawker 
attend to his pack, and Erasmus to his 
studies. Perhaps hereafter it will be found 
that his satires on the follies of the monas¬ 
teries, and above all his earlier translation 
of the New Testament, had their share in 
the good work. His motto is, ‘ Kindle the 
light, and the darkness will disperse of 
itself.’” 

“ If Erasmus,” I said, “would only con¬ 
sent to share in the result he has indeed 
contributed so nobly to bring about! ” 



FRITZ'S STORY . 


139 


“Share In what?” I10 replied quickly ; i 
“ in the excommunication of Luther? or in 
the wild projects of Hutten ? Have it sup¬ 
posed that lie approves of the coarse and 
violent invectives of the Saxon monk, or 
the daring schemes of the adventurous 
knight! No; St. Paul wrote courteously, 
and never returned railing for railing. Eras¬ 
mus should wait till he liml a rerormer like 
the apostle ere he join the Reformation. 
But, friend,” he added, “ I do not deny 
that Luther is a good man, and means well. 
If you like to abandon your perilous pack, 
and take to study, you may come to my 
house, and I will help you as far as I can 
with money and counsel. For I know what 
it is to be poor, and.I think you ought to 
be better than a hawker. And,” he added, 
bringing his horse to a stand, “ if you hear 
Erasmus maligned again as a coward or a 
traitor, you may say that God has more 
room in his kingdom than any men have in 
their schools; and that it is not always so 
easy for men who see things on many sides 
to embrace one. Believe also that the 
loneliness of those who see too much or 
dare too little to be partisans, often has 
anguish bitterer than the scaffolds of mar¬ 
tyrs. But,” he concluded in a low voice, 
as he left me, “be careful never again 
to link the names of Erasmus and Hut- 
ten. I assure you nothing can be more 
unlike. And Ulrich von Hutten is a most 
rash and dangerous man.” 

“ I will be careful never to forget Eras¬ 
mus,” 1 said, bowing low, as I took the 
hand he offered. And the doctor rode on. 

Yes, the sorrows of the undecided are 
doubtless bitterer than those of the cour¬ 
ageous ; bitterer as poison is bitterer than 
medicine, as an enemy’s wound is bitterer 
than a physician’s. Yet it is true that the 
clearer the insight into difficulty and dan¬ 
ger, the greater need be the courage to 
meet them. The path of the rude simple 
man who sees nothing but right on one side 
aud nothing but wrong on the other, is 
necessarily plainer than his who, seeing 
much evil in the good cause, and some truth 
at the foundation of all error, chooses to 
suffer for the right, mixed as it is, and to 
suffer side by side with men whose manners 
distress him, just because he believes the 
cause is on the whole that of truth and God. 
Luther’s school may not indeed have room 
for Erasmus, nor Erasmus’ school for 


Luther; but God may have compassion and 
room for both. 

At Basil I replenished my pack from the 
stores of Frobenius, and received very in¬ 
spiriting tidings from him of the spread of 
the truth of the Gospel (especially by means 
of the writings of Luther) into Italy and 
Spain. I did not apply further to Erasmus. 

Near Zurich, July . 

My heart is full of resurrection hymns. 
Everywhere in the world it seems Easter¬ 
tide. This morning, as I left Zurich, and, 
climbing one of the heights on this side, 
looked down on the lake, rippled with sil¬ 
ver, through the ranges of green and forest 
covered hills, to the glorious barrier of far- 
off mountains, purple, and golden, and 
snow-crowned, which encircles Switzerland, 
and thought of the many hearts which, dur¬ 
ing these years, have been awakened here 
to the liberty of the sons of God, the old 
chant of Easter and Spring burst from my 
lips:— 


Plaudite coeli, 
Rideat aether 
Summus et imus 
Gaudeat orbisl 
Transivit atr® 
Turba procell® 1 
Subuit aim® 
Gloria palms# 1 


Surgite verni, 
Surgite flores. 
Germina pictis 
Surgite campisl 
Teneris mist® 
Violis ros®; 
Candida sparsia 
Lilia calthis 1 


Currite plenis 
Carmina venis, 
Fundite l®tum, 
Barbita metrum; 
Namque revisit 
Sicuti dixit 
Pius ill®sus 
Funere Jesus. 


Plaudite montes 
Ludite fontes," 
Resonent valles, 
Repetant collesl 






140 


THE SCHOtfBERG-GOTTA FAMILY. 


Io revixit 
Sciente dixit 
Pius illaesus 
Funere Jesus.* 

And when I ceased, the mountain stream 
which dashed over the rocks beside me, 
the whispering grasses, the trembling wild- 
flowers, the rustling forests, the lake with 
its ripples, the green hills and solemn snow- 
mountains beyond—all seemed to take up 
the chorus. 

There is a wonderful, invigorating in¬ 
fluence about Ulrich Zwingle, with whom 
1 have spent many days lately. It seems 
as if the fresh air of the mountains among 
which he passed his youth were always 
around him. In his presence it is impossi¬ 
ble to despond. While Luther remains im¬ 
movably holding at every step he has taken, 
Zwingle presses on, and surprises the enemy 
asleep in his strongholds. Luther carries 
on the war like the Landsknechts, our own 
firm and impenetrable infantry; Zwingle, 
like his own impetuous mountaineers, 
sweeps down from the heights upon the 
foe. 

In Switzerland I and my books have met 
with more sudden and violent varieties of 
reception than anywhere else; the people 


* Smile praises, O sky! 

Soft breathe them, O air, 

Below and on high, 

And everywhere 1 
The black troop of storms 
Has yielded to calm; 

Tufted blossoms are peeping 
And early palm. 

Awake ye, O spring! 

Ye flowers, come forth, 

With thousand hues tinting 
The soft green earth! 

Ye violets tender, 

And sweet roses bright, 

Gay Lent-lilies blended 
With pure lilies white. 

Sweep tides of rich music 
The new world along, 

And pour in full measure 
Sweet lyres, your song! 

Sing, sing, for He liveth! 

He lives, as He said;— 

The Lord has arisen, 

Unharmed from the dead! 

Clap, clap your hands, mountains, 
Ye valleys, resound! 

Leap leap for joy, fountains; 

Ye hills, catch the sound! 

All triumph; He liveth! 

He lives, as He said; 

The Lord has arisen, 

Unharmed, from the dead; 


are so free and unrestrained. In some vil¬ 
lages, the chief men, or the priest himself, 
summoned all .the inhabitants by the church 
bell, to hear all I had to tell about Dr. 
Luther and his work, and to buy his books; 
my stay was one constant fete; and the 
warm-hearted peasants accompanied me 
miles on my way, discoursing of Zwingle 
and Luther, the broken yoke of Rome, and 
the glorious days of freedom that were 
coming. The names of Luther and Zwin¬ 
gle were on every lip, like those of Tell and 
Winkelried and the heroes of the old strug¬ 
gle of Swiss liberation. 

In other villages, on the contrary, the 
peasants gathered angrily around me, re¬ 
viled me as a spy and an intruding foreigner, 
and drove me with stones and rough jests 
from among them, threatening that I should 
not escape so easily another time. 

In some places they have advanced much 
further than among us in Germany. The 
images have been removed from the 
churches, and the service is read in the 
language of the people. 

But the great joy is to see that the light 
has not been spread only from torch to torch, 
as human illuminations spread, but has 
burst at once on Germany, France, and 
Switzerland, as heavenly light dawns from 
above. It is this which makes it not a 
lurid illumination merely, but morning and 
spring. Lefevre in France and Zwingle in 
Switzerland both passed through their period 
of storms and darkness, and both, awakened 
by the heavenly light to the new world, 
found that it was no solitude—that others 
were also awake, and that the day’s work 
had begun, as it should, with matin songs. 

Now I am tending northwards once more. 
I intend to renew my stores at my father’s 
press at Wittenberg. My heart yearns also 
for news of all dear to me there. Perhaps, 
too, I may yet see Dr. Luther, and find 
scope for preaching the evangelical doctrine 
among my own people. 

For better reports have come to us from 
Germany, and we believe Dr. Luther is in 
friendly keeping, though where is still a 
mystery. 

The Prison op a Dominican Convent, 
Franconia, August . 

All is changed for me. Once more prison 
walls are around me, and through prison 
bars I look out on the world I may not re¬ 
enter. I counted this among the costs when 
I resolved to give myself to spreading far 






FRITZ'S STORY. 


141 


and wide the glad tidings of redemption. It 
was worth the cost; it is worth whatever 
man can inflict—for I trust those days have 
not been spent in vain. 

Yesterday evening, as the day was sink¬ 
ing, 1 found my way once more to the par¬ 
sonage of Priest Ruprecht in the Franconian 
village. The door was open, but I heard no 
voices. There was a neglected look about 
the little garden. The vine was hanging 
untwined around the porch. The little 
dwelling, which had been so neat, had a 
dreary, neglected air. Dust lay thick on 
the chairs, and the remains of the last meal 
were left on the table. And yet it was 
evidently not unoccupied. A book lay upon 
the window sill, evidently lately read. It 
was the copy of Luther’s German Commen¬ 
tary on the Lord’s Prayer which I had left 
on that evening many months ago in the 
porch. 

I sat down in a window seat, and in a 
little while I saw the priest coming slowly 
up the garden. His form was' much bent 
since I saw him last, tie did not look up 
as he approached the house. It seemed as if 
he expected no welcome. But when I went 
out to meet him, he grasped my hand cord¬ 
ially, and his face brightened. When, 
however, he glanced at the book in my 
hand, a deeper shade passed over his brow; 
and motioning me to a chair, he sat down 
opposite me without speaking. 

After a few minutes he looked up, and 
said in a husky voice, “ That book did what 
all the denunciations and terrors of the old 
doctrine could not do. It separated us. 
She has left me.” 

He paused for some minutes, and then 
continued,—“The evening that she found 
that book in the porch, when I returned 
T found her reading it. ‘ Seel’ she said, 

‘ at last some one has written a religi¬ 
ous book for me! It was left here open, in 
the porch, at these words: “ If thou dost 
feel that in the sight of God and all crea¬ 
tures thou art a fool, a sinner, impure, and 
condemned, .... there remaineth no solace 
for thee, and no salvation, unless in Jesus 
Christ. To know him is to understand 
what the apostle says,—‘Christ has of God 
been made unto us wisdom, and righteous¬ 
ness, and sanctification, and redemption. 
He is the bread of God—our bread, given 
to us as children of the heavenly Father, 
To believe is nothing else than to eat this 
bread from heaven.” And look again. The 


book says it touches God’s heart when we 
call him Father,—and again, “Which art 
in heaven,” He that acknowledges he has 
a Father who is in heaven, owns that he is 
like an orphan on the earth. Hence his 
heart feels an ardent longing, like a child 
living away from his father’s country, 
amongst strangers, wretched and forlorn. 
It is as if he said, “AlasI my Father, thou 
art in heaven, and I, thy miserable child, 
am on the earth, far from thee, amid danger, 
necessity, and sorrow.” ‘Ah, Ruprecht,’she 
said, her eyes streaming with tears, ‘ that is 
so like what I feel,—so lost, and orphaned, 
and far away from home.’ And then, fear¬ 
ing she had grieved me, she added, ‘ Not 
that I am neglected. Thou knovvest I could 
never feel that. But oh, can it be possible 
that God would take me back, not after long 
years of penance, but now , and here , to his 
very heart ?’ 

“ I could say little to teach her, but from 
that time this book was her constant com- 



of Jesus suffering for sinners, and of God 
as the Father. 1 was amazed to see how 
many there were. The book seemed full of 
them. And so we went on for some days, 
until one evening she came to me, and said, 
‘ Ruprecht, if God is indeed so infinitely 
kind and good, and has so loved us, we 
must obey him, must we not? I could not 
for the world say No, and I had not the 
courage to say Yes, for I knew what she 
meant.” 

Again he paused. 

“ I knew too well what she meant, when, 
on the next morning, I found the breakfast 
laid, and everything swept and prepared as 
usual, and on the table, in printed letters on 
a scrap of paper, which she must have 
copied from the book, for she could not 
write, ‘Farewell. We shall be able to pray 
for each other now. And God will be with 
us, and will give us to meet hereafter, with¬ 
out fear of grieving him, in our Father’s 
house.’” 

“Do you know where she is ? ” I asked. 

“ She has taken service in a farm-house 
several miles away in the forest,” he re¬ 
plied. “ I have seen her once. She looked 
very thin and worn. But she did not see 
me.” 

The thought which had so often sug¬ 
gested itself to me before, came with irre¬ 
sistible force into my mind then,—“Jf 






THE 8CHO NBERG-COTTA FAMILY . 


143 

those vows of celibacy are contrary to the 
will of God, can they be binding?” But I 
did not venture to suggest them to my host. 
I only said, “ Let us pray that God will 
lead you both. The heart can bear many a 
heavy burden if the conscience is free.” 

“True,” he said. And together we knelt 
down, whilst I spoke to God. And the bur¬ 
den of our prayer was neither more nor 
less than this, “Our Father which art in 
heaven, not my will, but thine be done.” 

On the morrow I bade him farewell, leav¬ 
ing him several other works of Luther’s. 
And 1 determined not to lose an hour in 
seeking Melancthon and the doctors at Wit¬ 
tenberg, and placing this case before them. 

And now, perhaps, 1 shall never see Wit¬ 
tenberg again! 

It is not often that I have ventured into 
the monasteries, but to-day a young monk, 
who was walking in the meadows of this 
abbey, seemed so interested in my books, 
that I followed him to the convent, where 
he thought I should dispose of many copies. 
Instead of this, however, whilst I was 
waiting in the porch for him to return, I 
heard the sound of angry voices in discus¬ 
sion inside, and before I could perceive 
what it meant, three or four monks came 
to me, seized my pack, bound my hands, 
and dragged me to the convent prison, 
where I now am. 

“ It is time that this pestilence should be 
checked,” said one of them. “ Be thankful 
if your fate is not.the same as that of your 
poisonous books, which are this evening to 
make a bonfire in the court.” 

And with these words I was left alone in 
this low, damp,-dark cell, with its one little 
slit high in the wall, which just admits 
light enough to show the iron fetters hang¬ 
ing from the walls. But what power can 
make me a captive while I can sing— 


Mortis portis fractis, fortis 
Fortior vim sustulit; 

Et per crucern regem trucem, 
Infernorum perculit. 


Lumen clarum tenebrarum 
Sedibus resplenduit; 
bum salvare, recreare 
Quod creavit, voluit. 


Hinc Creator, ne peccar, 
Moreretur, moritur; to 


Cujus morte, nova sort®, 

Vita nobis oritur.* 

Are not countless hearts now singing this 
resurrection hymn, to some of whom my 
hands brought the joyful tidings ? In the 
lonely parsonage, in the forest and farm, 
hearts are set free by love from the fetters 
of sin—in village and city, in mountain and 
plain! 

And at Wittenberg, in happy homes, and 
in the convent, are not my beloved sing¬ 
ing it too ? 

September. 

Yet the time seems long to lie in inaction 
here. With these tidings, “The Lord is 
risen” echoing through her heart, would it 
not have been hard for the Magdalen to 
be arrested on her way to the bereaved dis¬ 
ciples before she could tell it? 

October. 

I have a hope of escape. In a corner of 
my prison I discovered, some days since, 
the top of an arch, which I believe must be¬ 
long to a blocked-up door. By slow de¬ 
grees—working by night, and covering over 
my work by day—I have dug out a flight of 
steps which led to it. This morning#! suc¬ 
ceeded in dislodging one of the stones with 
which the door-way has been roughly filled 
up, and through the space surveyed the 
ground outside. It was a portion of a 
meadow, sloping to the stream, which 
turned the abbey mills. This morning two 
of the monks came to summon me to an ex¬ 
amination before the Prior, as to my heresies; 
but to-night I hope to dislodge the few 
more stones, and this very night, before 
morning dawn, to be treading with free 
steps the forest-covered hills beyond the 
valley. 

My limbs feel feeble with insufficient 
food, and the damp, close air of the .cell; 
and the blood flows with feverish, uncer¬ 
tain rapidity through my veins; but, doubt¬ 
less, a few hours on the fresh, breezy hills 
will set all this right. 

And yet once more I shall see my mother, 
and Else, and Thekla, and little Gretchen, 

* Lo, the gates of death are broken. 

And the strong man armed is spoiled 

Of his armor, which he trusted— 

By the stronger Arm despoiled. 

Vanquished is the Prince of Hell: 

Smitten by the cross, he fell. 

That the sinner might not perish, 

For him the Creator dies; 

By whose death, our dark lot changing. 

Life again for us doth rise. 









THEKLA'8 STORY 


and all,—all but one, who, I fear, is still 
imprisoned in convent walls. Yet once 
more 1 trust to go throughout the land 
spreading the joyful tidings,—“The Lord 
is risen indeed;” the work of redemption is 
accomplished, and he who once lived and 
suffered on earth, compassionate to heal, 
now lives and reigns in heaven, mighty to 
save. 

THEKLA’S STORY. 

Tunnenberg, May , 1521. 

Is the world really the same ? Was there 
really ever a spring like this, when the tide 
of life seems overflowing and budding 
up in leaf-buds, flowers, and songs, and 
streams ? 

It cannot be only that God has given me 
the great blessing of Bertrand de Crequi’s 
love, and that life opens in such bright 
fields of hope and work before us two; or 
that this is the first spring I ever spent in 
the country. It seems to me that God is 
really pouring a tide of fresh life through¬ 
out the world. 

Fritz lias escaped from the prison at 
Mainz, and he writes as if he felt this an 
Easter-tide for all men. In all p[aces, he 
says, the hearts of men are opening to the 
glad tidings of the redeeming love of God. 

Can it be, however, that every May is 
1 such a festival among the woods, and that 
this solemn old forest holds such fairy holi¬ 
day every year, garlanding its bare branches 
| and strewing every brown nook which a 
sunbeam can reach, with showers of flow- 
I ers, such as we strew on a bride’s path? 
And then, who could have imagined that 
those grave old firs and stately birches 
could become the cradles of all these deli¬ 
cate-tufted blossoms and tenderly-folded 
leaflets, bursting on all sides from their 
i gummy casings? And—joy of all joys!—it 
! is not unconscious vegetable life only which 
; thus expands around us. It is God touching 
‘ every branch and living root, and waking 
| them to beauty. It is not sunshine merely, 
and soft breezes; it is our Father smiling on 
his works, and making the world fresh and 
fair for his children,—it is the healing 
touch and the gracious Voice we have 
learned to know, “We are in the world, 
and the world was made by Thee;” and 
“Te Deum laudamus: we acknowledge 
thee 0 Saviour, to be the Lord.” 

Our Chriemhild cartainly has a beautiful 
home, Bertrand’s home, also, is a castle in 


148 

the country, in Flanders. But he says their 
country is not like this forest-land. It has 
long been cleared by industrious hands. 
Thei% are long, stately avenues leading to 
his father’s chateau; but all around, the 
land is level and waving with grass and 
green or golden corn-fields. That, also, 
must be beautiful. But probably the home 
he has gone to prepare for me may not be 
there. Some of his family are very bitter 
against what they call his Lutheran heresy, 
and although he is the heir, it is very pos¬ 
sible that the branch of the family which 
adheres to the old religion may wrest the 
inheritance from him. That, we think, 
matters little. God will find the right place 
for us, and lead us to it, if we ask him. 
And if it be in the town, after all, the tide 
of life in human hearts is nobler than that 
in trees and flowers. In a few months we 
shall know. Perhaps he may return here, 
and become a professor at Wittenberg, 
whither Dr. Luther’s name brought him a 
year since to study. 

June , 1521. 

A rumor has reached us, that Dr. Luther 
has disappeared on his way back from 
Worms. 

This spring in the world as well as in the 
forest, will doubtless have its storms. Last 
night, the thunder echoed from hill to hill, 
and the wind wailed wildly among the 
pines. Looking out of my narrow window 
in the tower on the edge of the rock, where 
I sleep, it was awful to see the foaming 
torrent below gleaming in the lightning- 
flashes, which opened at sudden glimpses 
into tiie depths of the forest, leaving it 
doubly mysterious. 

I thought of Fritz’s lonely night, when 
he lost himself in the forest; and thanked 
God that I had learned to know the thun 
der as his voice, and his voice as speaking 
peace and pardon. Only at such times I 
should like to gather all dear to me around 
me; and those dearest to me are scattered 
far and wide. 

The old knight Ulrich is rather impetu¬ 
ous and hot-tempered; and his sister, Ul¬ 
rich’s aunt, Dame Herraentrud is grave 
and stately. Fortunately, they both look on 
Chriemhild as a wonder of beauty and 
goodness, but I have to be rather careful. 
Dame Hermentrud is apt to attribute any 
over-vehemence of mine in debate to the 
burgher Cotta blood; and although they 
both listen with interest to Ulrich or 









144 


TEE SC HONE ERG-COTTA FAMILY. 


Chriemliild’s version of Dr. Luther’s doc¬ 
trines, Dame Hermentrud frequently warns 
me against unfeminine exaggeration or 
eagerness in these matters, and renfinds 
me that the ancestors of the Gersdorf 
family were devout and excellent people 
long before a son was born to Hans Luther 
the miner. 

The state of the peasants distresses 
Chriemliild and me extremely. She and 
Ulrich were full of plans for their good 
when they came here to live; but she is at 
present almost exclusively occupied with 
the education of a little knightly creature, 
who came into the world two months since, 
and is believed to concentrate in his single 
little person all the ancestral virtues of all 
the Gersdorfs, to say nothing of theSclidn- 
bergs. He has not, Dame Hermentrud as¬ 
serts, the slightest feature of resemblance 
to the Cottas. I cannot, cetainly, deny that 
he bears unmistakable traces of that aristo¬ 
cratic temper and that lofty taste for ruling 
which at times distinguished my grand¬ 
mother, and, doubtless, all the Gersdorfs 
from the days of Adam downward, or at 
least the days of Babel. Beyond that, I 
believe, few pedigrees are traced, except in 
a general way to the sons of Noah. But it is 
a great honor for me to be connected, even 
in the humblest manner, with such a dis 
tinguished little being. In time, I am not 
without hopes, that it will introduce a little 
reflex nobility even into my burgher nature; 
and meantime Chriemliild and I secretly 
trace remarkable resemblances in her 
dear baby features to our grandmother, 
and even to our beloved, sanguine, blind 
father. It is certainly a great consolation 
that our father chose our names from the 
poems and the stars and the calendar of 
aristocratic saints, instead of from the lowly 
Cotta pedigree. 

Ulrich has not indeed by any means 
abandoned Ins scheme of usefulness among 
the peasantry who live on his uncle’s 
estates. But he finds more opposition than 
he expected. The old knight, although 
ready enough to listen to any denunciations 
of the self-indulgent priests and lazy 
monks (especially those of the abbey whose 
hunting-grounds adjoin his own), is very 
averse to making the smallest change in 
anything. He says the boors are difficult 
enough to keep in order as it is; that if 
they are taught to think for themselves, 
there will be no safety for the game, or for 


anything ^else. They will be quoting the 
Bible in all kinds of wrong senses against 
their rightful lords, and will perhaps even 
take to debating the justice of the heredi¬ 
tary feuds, and refuse to follow their 
knight’s banner to the field. 

As to religion, he is quite sure that the 
Ave and the Pater are as much as will be 
expected of them; whilst Dame Hermen- ; 
trud has most serious doubts of this new 
plan of writing books and reading prayers ■ 
in the language of the common people. J 
They will be thinking, themselves as wise $ 
t as the priests, and perhaps wiser than their 
masters. 

But Ulrich’s chief disappointment is with 
the peasants themselves. They seem as ? 
little anxious for improvement as the lords 
are for them, and are certainly suspicious 
to a most irritating degree of any schemes- 
for their welfare issuing from the castle.' 
As to their children being taught to read! 
they consider it an invasion of their rights, 
and murmur that if they follow the nobles in 
hunt and foray, and till their fields, and go 
to mass on Sunday, the rest of their time 
is their own, and it is an usurpation in 
priest or knight to demand more. 

It will, I fear, be long before the dry, 
barren crustof their dull hard life is broken; 
and yet the words of life are for them as 
much as for us! And one great difficulty 
seems to me, that if they were taught to 
read, there are so few German religious' 
books. Except a few tracts of Dr. Luther’s, j 
what is there that they could understand? 
If some one would only translate the 
record of the words and acts of our Lord ; 
and his apostles, it would be worth while 
then teaching every one to read. 

And if we could only get them to confide’ 
in us! There must be thought, and we 
know there is affection underneath all this 
reserve. It is a heavy heritage for the long i 
ancestry of the Gersdorfs to have be¬ 
queathed to this generation, these recollec-f 
tions of tyranny and wrong, and this mu¬ 
tual distrust. Yet Ulrich says it is too i 
common throughout the land. Many of 
the old privileges of the nobles were so ter¬ 
ribly oppressive in hard or careless hands. J 

The most promising field at present seems . 
to be among the household retainers. 
Among these there is strong personal at¬ 
tachment; and the memory of Ulrich’s pious , 
mother seems to have left behind it that 








THEKLA’S STORY. 


145 


faith in goodness, which is one of the most 
precious legacies of holy lives. 

Even the peasants in the village speak 
lovingly of her; of the medicines she used 
to distill from the forest-herbs, and dis¬ 
tribute with her own hands to the sick. 
There is a tradition also in the castle of a 
bright maiden called Beatrice who used to 
visit the cottage homes, and bring sunshine 
whenever she came. But she disappeared 
year3 ago, they say; and the old family 
nurse shaices her head as she tells me how 
the Lady Beatrice’s heart was broken, when 
she was separated by family feuds from her 
betrothed, and after that she went to tl}£ 
convent at Nimptschen, and has been dead 
to the world ever since. 

Nimptschen! that is the living grave 
where our precious Eva is burred. And yet 
where she is I am sure it can be no grave of 
death. She will bring life and blessings 
with her. I will write her, especially about 
this poor blighted Beatrice. 

Altogether the peasants seem much less 
suspicious of the women of the Gersdorf 
family than of the men. They will often 
listen attentively even to me. And when 
Chriemhild can go among them a little more, 
I hope better days will dawn. 

August, 1521. 

This morning we had a strange encoun¬ 
ter. Some days since we received a mys¬ 
terious intimation from Wittenberg, that 
Dr. Luther is alive and in friendly keeping, 
I; not far from us. To-day Ulrich and I were 
[ riding through the forest to visit an out¬ 
lying farm or the Gersdorfs in the direction 
| of Eisenach, when we heard across a valley 
p the huntsman’s horn, with the cry of the 
j dogs in full chase. In a few moments an 
|l opening among the trees brought us in sight 
1 of the hunt sweeping towards us up the op- 
I posite slopes of the valley. Apart from the 
| hunt, and nearer us at a narrow part of the 
valle/, we observed a figure in the cap and 
plumes of a knight, apparently watching 
I the chase as we were. As we were looking 
at him, a poor, bewildered leveret fled to¬ 
wards him, and cowered close to his feet. 

I He stooped, and gently taking it up, folded 
| it in the long "sleeve of his tunic, and 
stepped quickly aside. In another minute, 
however, the hunt swept up towards him, 
and the dogs scenting the leveret, seized on 
it in its refuge, dragged it down, and killed 
it. 

This unusual little incident, this human 


being putting himself on the side of the 
pursued, instead of among the pursuers, ex¬ 
cited our attention. There was also some¬ 
thing in the firm figure and sturdy gait that 
perplexingly reminded us of some one we 
knew. Our road lay across the valley, and 
Ulrich rode aside to greet the strange 
knight. In a moment he returned to me, 
and whispered,— 

“ It is Martin Luther!” 

We could not resist the impulse to look 
once more on the kind honest face, and 
riding close to him we bowed to him. 

He gave us a smile of recognition, and 
laying his hand on Ulrich’s saddle said, 
softly. “The chase is a mystery of higher 
things. See how, as these ferocious dogs 
seized my poor leveret from its refuge, 
Satan rages against souls, and seeks to tear 
from' their hiding-place even t those already 
saved. But the arm which holds them is 
stronger than mine. I have had enough of 
this kind of chase,” he added; “ sweeter to 
me the chase of the bears, wolves, boars, and 
foxes which lay waste the Church, than of 
these harmless creatures. And of such ra¬ 
pacious beasts there are enough in the 
world.” 

My heart was full of the poor peasants 
I had been seeing lately. I never could feel 
afraid of Dr. Luther, and this opportunity 
was too precious to be thrown away. It 
always seemed the most natural thing in the 
world to open one’s heart to him. lie un¬ 
derstood so quickly and so fully. As he 
was wishing us good-bye, therefore, 1 said 
(I am afraid, in that abrupt, blundering way 
of mine),— 

‘ ‘ Dear Dr, Luther, the poor peasants here 
are so ignorant! and I have scarcely any¬ 
thing to read to them which they can under¬ 
stand. Tell some one, 1 entreat you, to 
translate the Gospels into German for them; 
such German as your ‘ Discourse on tho 
Magnificat,’ or ‘The Lord’s Prayer,’ foi 
they all understand that.” 

He smiled, and said, kindly,— 

“It is being done, my child. I am try¬ 
ing in my Patinos tower once more to unveil 
the Revelation to the common people; and, 
doubtless, they will hear it gladly. That 
book alone is the sun from which all true 
teachers draw their light. Would that it 
were in the language of every man, held in 
eveiy hand, read by every eye, listened to 
by every ear, treasured up in every heart. 
And it will be yet, I trust.” 






146 


THE SCHONBERG-COTTA FAMILY . 


He began to move away, but as we looked 
reverently after him he turned to us again, 
and said, “ lie member the wilderness 1 " was 
the scene of the temptation. Pray for me, 
that in the solitude of my wilderness I may 
be delivered from the tempter.” And wav¬ 
ing his hand, in a few minutes he was out 
of sight. 

We thought it would be an intrusion to 
follow him. or to inquire where he was con¬ 
cealed. But as the hunt passed away, 
Ulrich recognized one of the huntsmen as a 
retainer of the Elector Frederic at his castle 
of the Wartburg. 

And now when every night and morning 
in my prayers I add, as usual, the name of 
Dr. Luther to those of my mother and father 
and all dear to me,-1 think of him passing 
long days and nights alone in that grim 
castle, looking down on the dear old Eisen¬ 
ach valley, and I say, “Lord make the 
wilderness to him the school for his ministry 
to all our land.” 

For was not our Saviour himself led first 
into the wilderness, to overcome the tempter 
in solitude, before he came forth to teach, 
and heal and cast out devils ? 

. October . 

Ulrich has seen Dr. Luther again. He was 
walking in the forest near the Wartburg, and 
looked very ill and sad. His heart was 
heavy on account of the disorders in the 
Church, the falsehood and bitterness of the 
enemies of the Gospel,'and the impetuosity 
or luke warmness of too many of its friends. 
He said it would almost have been better if 
they had left him to die by the hands of his 
enemies. His blood might have cried to 
God for deliverance. He was ready to yield 
himself to them as an ox to the yoke. He 
would rather be burned on live coals, than 
sleep away the precious years thus, half 
alive, in sloth and ease. And yet, from 
what Ulrich gathered further from him of 
his daily life, his “sloth and ease” would 
seem arduous toil to most men. He saw 
the room where Dr. Luther lives and labors 
day and night, writing letters of consolation 
to his friends, and masterly replies, they say, 
to the assailants of the truth, and (bettor 
than all) translating the Bible from Hebrew 
and Greek into German. 

The room has a large window command¬ 
ing many reaches of the forest; and he 
showed Ulrich the rookery in the tops of 
the trees below, whence he learned lessons 
In politics from the grave consultations of 


the rooks who hold their Diet there; he also 
spoke to him of the various creatures in 
rock and forest which soothed his solitude, 
the birds singing among the branches, the 
berries, wild flowers, and the clouds and 
stars. But he alluded also to fearful con¬ 
flicts, visible and audible appearances of the 
Evil One and his health seemed much shat¬ 
tered. 

We fear that noble loving heart is wear¬ 
ing itself out in the lonely fortress. He 
seems chafing like a war-horse at the echo 
of the distant battle, or a hunter at the 
sound of the chase; or rather, as a captive 
general who sees his troops, assailed by 
force and stratagem, broken and scattered 
and cannot break his chains to rally and to 
lead them on. 

Yet he spoke most gratefully of his hos¬ 
pitable treatment in the castle; said he was 
living like a prince or a cardinal; and de¬ 
precated the thought that the good cause 
would not prosper without his presence. 

“ I cannot be with them in death,” he 
said, “ nor they with me ! Each must fight 
that last fight, go through that passion 
alone. And only those will overcome who 
have learned how to win the victory 
before, and grounded deep in the heart 
that word, which is the great power against 
sin and the devil, that Christ has died for 
each one of us, and has overcome Satan for 
ever.” 

He said also that if Melancthon lived it 
mattered < little to the Church what hap¬ 
pened to him. The Spirit of Elijah came in 
double power on Elisha. 

And he gave Ulrich two or three precious 
fragments of his translation of the Gospels, 
for me to read to the peasants. 

November. 

I have gone with my precious bits of the 
German Bible that is to be into many a cot¬ 
tage during this month,—simple narratives 
of poor, leprous, and palsied people, who 
came to the Lord, and he touched them 
and healed their diseases; and of sinners 
whom he forgave. 

It is wonderful how the simple people 
seem to drink them in; that is, those who 
care at all for such things. “ Is this indeed 
what the Lord Christ is like?” they say; 
“ then, surely, we may speak to him in our 
own words, and ask first what we want, as 
those poor men and women did of old. It is 
true, indeed, that peasants, women, and sick 
people could come straight to the Lord him- 





EVA’S STOR\ 


147 


self ? Was he not always kept off from the | 
common people by a band of priests and 
saints ? Was he indeed to be spoken to by 
all, and he such a great Lord?” 

I said that I thought it was the necessity 
of human princes, and not their glory, to 
be obliged to employ deputies, and not let 
each one plead his own case. They look 
greatest afar off, surrounded by the pomp 
of a throne, because in themselves they are 
weak and sinful, like other men. But He 
needed no pomp, nor the dignity of dis¬ 
tance, because he is not like other men, but 
sinless and divine, and the glory is in him¬ 
self, not in the things around him. 

Then I had a narrative of the crucifixion 
to read; and many a tear have I seen stream 
over rough cheeks, and many a smile beam 
in dim aged eyes as I read this. 

“We seem to understand it all at once,” 
an old woman said; “ and yet there always 
seems something more in it each time.” 

December. 

This' morning I had a letter from Ber¬ 
trand,—the first for many weeks. He is 
full of hope; not, indeed, of recovering his 
inheritance, but of being at Wittenberg 
again in a few weeks. 

I suppose my face looked very bright 
when I received it and ran with the pre¬ 
cious letter to my own room; for Dame 
Herment.rud said much this evening about 
receiving everything with moderation, and 
about the propriety of young maidens hav¬ 
ing a very still and collected demeanor, and 
about the uncertainty of all things below. 
My heavenly Father knows 1 do not forget 
that all things are uncertain; although, 
often, I dare hot dwell on it. But he lias 
given me this good gift—he himself—and I 
will thank him with an overflowing heart 
for it ? 

I cannot understand Dame Hermentrud’s 
religion. She seems to think it prudent, 
and a duty, to take everything God gives 
coolly, as if we did not care very much 
about it, lest he should think he had given 
us something too good for us, and grudge 
it to us, and take it away again. 

No; if God does take away, he takes 
away as he gave, in infinite love; and I 
would not for the world add darkness to the 
dark days, if they must come, by the bitter 
regret that I did not enjoy the sunshine 
whilst he gave it. For, indeed, I cannot 
help fearing sometimes, when I think of 


the martyrs of old, and the bitterness of the 
enemies of the good tidings now. But then 
I try to look up, and try to say, “ Safer, 0 
Father, in thy hands than in mine.” And 
all the comfort of the prayer depends on 
how I can comprehend and feel that name, 
“ Father.” 

XVII. 

EVA’S STORY- 

Cistercian Convent, Nimptschen, 
September , 1521 . 

They have sent me several sheets of Dr. 
Luther’s translation of the New Testament, 
from Uncle Cotta’s press at Wittenberg Of 
all the works he ever did for God, this seems 
to me the mightiest and the best. None has 
ever so deeply stirred our convent. Many 
of the sisters positively refuse to join in any 
invocation of the saints. They declare that 
it must be Satan himself who has kept this 
glorious book locked up in a dead language 
out of reach of women and children and the 
common people. And the young nuns say 
it is so interesting, it is not in the least like 
a book of sermons, or a religious treatise. 

“It is like everyday life,” said one of 
them to me, “with what every one wants 
brought into it; a perfect Friend, so infinitely 
good, so near, and so completely under- 
standingour inmost hearts. Ah, Sister Eva,” 
she added, “ if they could only hear of this 
at home!” 

October. 

To-day we have received a copy of - Dr". 
Luther’s thesis against the monastic life. 

“There is but one only spiritual estate,” 
he writes, “ which is holy and makes holy, 
and that is Christianity,—the faith which is 
the common right of all.” 

“ Monastic institutions, he continues, “ to 
be of any use ought to be schools, in which 
children may be brought up until they are 
adults. But as it is, they are houses in 
which men and women become children and 
ever continue childish.” 

Too well, alas! 1 know the truth of these 
last words; the hopeless, childish occupation 
with trifles, into which the majority of the 
nuns sinlc when the freshness of youth and 
the bitter conflict of separation from all dear 
to the heart has subsided, and the great inci¬ 
dents of life have become the decorating the 
church for a festival, or the pomp attending 
the visit of an Inspector or Bishop. 






148 


THE SC HO NB ERG-COTTA FAMILY , 


It is against this I have striven. It is this 
I dread for the young sisters; to see them 
sink into contented trifling with religious 
playthings. And I have been able to see 
no way of escape, unless, indeed, we could 
be transferred to some city and devote our¬ 
selves to the care of the sick and poor. 

Dr. Luther, however, admits of another 
solution. We hear that he has counselled 
the Prior of the Monastery at Erfurt to 
suffer any monks who wish it freely to de¬ 
part. And many, we have been told, in 
various monasteries have already left, and 
returned to serve God in the world. 

Monks can, indeed, do this. The world 
is open before them, and in some way they 
are sure to find occupation. But with us it 
is different! Torn away from our natural 
homes, the whole world around us is a 
trackless desert. 

Yet how can I dare to say this ? Since 
the whole world is the work of our heav¬ 
enly Father’s hands, and may be the way 
to our Father’s house, will not he surely 
find a place for each of us in it, and a path 
for us through it ? 

November 10 . 

Nine of the younger nuns have come to 
the determination, if possible, to give up 
the conventual life, with its round of su¬ 
perstitious .observances. This evening we 
held a consultation in Sister Beatrice’s cell. 
Aunt Agnes joined us. 

It was deeided that each should write to 
her relatives, simply confessing that she be¬ 
lieved the monastic vows and life to be 
contrary to the Holy Scriptures, and pray¬ 
ing to be received back into her family. 

Sister Beatrice and Aunt Agnes decided 
to remain patiently where they were. 

“My old home would be no more a home 
to me now than the convent,” Sister Bea¬ 
trice said. “ There is liberty for me to die 
here, and an open way for my spirit to re¬ 
turn to God.” 

Ami Aunt Agnes said,— 

“ Who knows but that there may be 
some lowly work left for me to do here yet! 
In the world I should be as lielples as a 
child, and why should I return to be a 
burden on my kindred ? ” 

They both urged me to write to Else or 
Aunt Cotta to "receive me. But 1 can 
scarcely think it my duty. Aunt Cotta has 
her children around her. Else’s home is 
strange to me. Besides, kind as every one 
has been to me, I am as a stray waif on the 


current of this world, and have no home in 
it. 1 think God has enabled me to cheer 
and help some few here, and while Aunt 
Agnes and Sister Beatrice remain, I cannot 
bear the thought of leaving. At all events 
I will wait. 

November 22 . 

Fritz is in prison again. For many weeks 
they had heard nothing from him, and were 
wondering where he was, when a letter 
came from a priest called Ruprecht Haller, 
in Franconia. He says Fritz came to his 
house one evening in July, remained the 
night, left next morning with his pack of 
Lutheran books, intending to proceed direct 
to Wittenberg, and gave him the address of 
Aunt Cotta there. But a few weeks after¬ 
wards a young monk met him near the 
Dominican Convent, and asked if he were 
the priest at whose house a pedlar had spent 
a night a few weeks before. The priest 
admitted it; whereon the j r oung monk said 
to him, in alow, hurried accent— 

“ Write to his friends, if you know them, 
and say he is in the prison of the convent, 
under strong suspicion of heresy. I am the 
young man to whom he gave a book on the 
evening he came. Tell them I did not in¬ 
tend to betray him, although I led him 
into the net; and if ever they should pro¬ 
cure his escape, and you see him again, tell 
him I have kept his book.” The good priest 
says something also about Fritz having been 
his salvation. And he urges that the most 
strenuous exertions should be made to lib¬ 
erate him, and any powerful friends we have 
should be entreated to intercede, because 
the Prior of the Dominican Convent where 
he is imprisoned is a man of the severest 
temper, and a mighty hater of heretics. 

Powerful friends! I know none whom 
we can entreat but God. 

It was in July, then, that he was captured, 
two months since. I wonder if it is only 
my impatient spirit! but I feel as if I must 
go to Aunt Cotta. I have a feeling she will 
want me now. I think I might comfort her; 
for who can tell what two months in a 
Dominican prison may have done for him? 

In our convent have we not a prison, low, 
dark, and damp enough to weigh the life 
out of any one in six weeks ? From one of 
the massive low pillars hang heavy iron fet¬ 
ters, happily rusted now from disuse; and 
in a corner are a rack and other terrible 
instruments, now thrown aside there, on 



EVA 'S STORY . 


149 


Which some of the older nuns say they have 
seen staiii3 of blood. 

When lie was in prison before at Mainz, I 
did not. seem so desponding about his de¬ 
liverance as 1 feel now. 

Are these fears God’s merciful prepara¬ 
tions for some dreadful tidings about to 
reach us ? or are they the mere natural en¬ 
feebling of the power to hope as one grows 
older ? 

December , 1521. 

Many disappointments have fallen on us 
during the last fortnight. Answer after 
answer lias come to these touching entreat¬ 
ies of the nine sisters to their kindred, in 
various tones of feeling, but all positively 
refusing to receive them back to their 
homes. 

Some of the relatives use the bitterest re¬ 
proaches and the severest menaces. Others 
write tenderly and compassionately, but all 
agree that no noble family can possibly 
bring on itself the disgrace of aiding a 
professed nun to break her vows. Poor 
children, my heart aches for them, some of 
them are so young, and were so confident 
of being welcomed back with open arms, 
remembering the tears with which they 
were given up. 

Now indeed they are thrown on God. He 
will not fail them; but who can say through 
what stormy paths then* feet may have to 
tread ? 

It has also been discovered here that 
some of them have written thus to their 
relations, which renders their position far 
more difficult and painful. 

Many of the older nuns are most indig¬ 
nant at what they consider an act of basest 
treachery and sacrilege. I also am for¬ 
bidden to have any more intercourse with 
the suspected sisters. Search has been 
made in every cell, and all the Lutheran 
books have been seized, whilst the strictest 
attendance is required at all the services. 

February 10,~1522. 

Sister Beatrice is dead, after a brief ill¬ 
ness. The gentle, patient spirit is at rest. 

It seems difficult to think of joy associated 
with that subdued and timid heart, even in 
heaven. 1 can only think of her as at rest. 

One night after she died I had a dream, 
in which I seemed to see her entering into 
heaven. Robed and veiled in white, 1 saw 
her slowly ascending the way to the gates 
of the City, Her head and her eyes were 


cast on the ground, and she did not seem to 
dare to look up at the pearly gates, even to 
see if they were open or closed. But two 
angels, the gentlest spirits in heaven, came 
out and met her, and each taking one of 
her hands, led her silently inside, like a 
penitent child. And as she entered, the 
harps and songs within seemed to be 
hushed to music soft as the dreamy murmur 
of a summer noon. Still she did not look 
up, but passed through the golden streets 
with her hands trustingly folded in the 
hands of the angels, until she stood before 
the throne. Then from the throne came a 
Voice, which said, “ Beatrice, it is I; be not 
afraid.” And when she heard that voice, a 
quiet smile beamed over her face like a 
glory, and for the first time she raised her 
eyes; and sinking at His feet, murmured, 
“ Home!” And it seemed to me as if that 
one word from the low, trembling voice 
vibrated through every harp in heaven; and 
from countless voices, ringing as happy 
children’s, and tender as a "mother’s, came 
back, in a tide of love and music, the words, 
“ Welcome home.” 

This was only a dream; but it is no 
dream that she is there! 

She said little in her illness. She did not 
suffer much. The feeble frame made little 
resistance to the low fever which attacked 
her. The words she spoke were mostly ex¬ 
pressions of thankfulness for little ser¬ 
vices, or entreaties for forgiveness for any 
little pain she fancied she might have given. 

Aunt Agnes and I chiefly waited on her. 
She was uneasy if we were long away from 
her. Her thoughts often recurred to her 
girlhood in the old castle in the Thuringen 
forest; and she liked to hear me speak of 
Ohriemliild and Ulrich, and their infant boy. 
One evening she called me to her, and said, 
“ Tell my sister Hermentrud, and my 
brother, I am sure they all meant kindly in 
sending me here; and it has been a good 
place for me, especially since you came. 
But tell Chriemhild and Ulrich,” she added, 
“if they have daughters, to remember 
plighted troth is a sacred thing, and let it 
not be lightly severed. Not that the sorrow 
has been evil for me; only I would not have 
another suffer. All, all has been good for 
me, and I so unworthy of all.” 

Then passing her thin hands over my head 
as I knelt beside her, she said, “ Eva, you 
have been like a mother, a sister, a child,— 
everything to me. Go back to your old 







150 


THE SGHONBERG-COTTA FAMILY, 


home when I am gone. I like to think you 
will be there.” 

Then, as if fearing she might have been 
ungrateful to Aunt Agnes, she asked for 
her, and said, “ I can never thank you for 
all you have done for me. The blessed 
Lord will remember it; for did he not say, 

‘ In that ye have done it unto the least.'” 

And in the night, as I sat by her alone, 
she said, “Eva, I have dreaded very much 
to die. I am so very weak in spirit, and 
dread everything. But I think God must 
make it easier for the feeble such as me. 
For although I do not feel any stronger, I 
am not afraid now. It must be because lie 
is holding me up.” 

She then asked me to sing; and with a 
faltering voice I sung, as well as I could, 
the hymn, Astant angelorum chori :— 

High the angel-choirs are raising 
Heart and voice in harmony; 
i The Creator King still praising, 

Whom in beauty there they see! 

Sweetest strains from soft harps stealing, 
i Trumpets’ notes of triumph pealing; 

; Radiant wings and white robes gleaming, 

Up the steps of glory streaming, 

Where the heavenly bells are ringing, 

Holy, holy, holy, singing, 

To the mighty Trinity! 

For all earthly care and sighing 
In that city cease to be! 

And two days after, in the grey of the 
autumn morning, she died. She fell asleep 
with the name of Jesus on her lips. 

It is strange how silent and empty the 
convent seems, only because that feeble 
voice is hushed and that poor shadowy 
form has passed away! 

February , 1522. 

Sister Beatrice has been laid in the con¬ 
vent church-yard with solemn, mournful 
dirges and masses, and stately ceremonies, 
which seemed to .me little in harmony 
with her timid, shrinking nature, or the 
peace her spirit rests in now. 

* The lowly mound in the church-yard, 
marked by no memorial but a wooden cross, 
accords better with her memory. The wind 
will rustle gently there next summer, 
through the grass; and this winter the robin 
will warble quietly in the old elm above. 

But I shall never see the grass clothe that 
earthy mound. It is decided that I am to 
leave the convent this week. Aunt Agnes 
and two of the young sisters have just left 
.my cell, and all is planned. 

The petty persecutions against those they 


call the Lutheran Bisters increase continu¬ 
ally, whilst severer and more open pro¬ 
ceedings are threatened. It is therefore 
decided that I am to make my escape at the 
first favorable opportunity, find my way to 
Wittenberg, and then lay the case of the 
nine nuns before the Lutheran doctors, and 
endeavor to provide for their rescue. 

February 20, 1522. 

At last the peasant’s dress in which I am 
to escape is in my cell, and this very night, 
when all is quiet, I am to creep out of the 
window of Katherine von Bora’s cell, into 
the convent garden. Aunt Agnes has been 
nervously eager about my going, and has 
been busy secretly storing a little basket 
with provisions. But to-night, when I 
went into her cell to wish iier good-bye, 
she quite broke down, and held me tight in 
her arms, as if she could never let me go, 
while her lips quivered, and tears rolled 
slowly over her thin, furrowed cheeks. 
“ Eva, child,” she said, “ who first taught 
me to love in spite of myself, and then 
taught me that God is love, and that he 
could make me, believing in Jesus, a happy, 
loving child again, how can I part with 
thee ?” 

“ You will join me again,” I said, “ and 
your sister who loves you so dearly ?” 

She shook her head and smiled through 
her tears, as she said,— 

“ Poor helpless old woman that I am, 
what would you do with me in the busy 
life outside ?” 

But her worst fear was for me, in my 
journey alone to Wittenberg, which seemed 
to her, who for forty years had.never 
passed the convent walls, so long and 
perilous. Aunt Agnes always thinks of 
me as a young girl, and imagines every 
one must think me beautiful, because love 
makes me so to her. She is sure they will 
take me for some princess in disguise. 

She forgets I am a quiet, sober-looking 
woman of seven-and-twenty, whom no one 
will wonder to see gravely plodding along 
the highway. 

But 1 almost made her promise to come 
to us at Wittenberg; and at last she re¬ 
proached herself with distrusting God, and 
said she ought never to have feared 
that his angels would watch over me. 

Once more, then, the world opens before 
me; but I do not hope (and why should I 
wish ?) that it should be more to me than 
this convent has been—a place where God 






ERSE'S STORY. 


151 


will be with me and give me some little ( 
loving services to do for him. 

But my heart does yearn to embrace dear 
Aunt Cotta and Else once more, and little 
Thekla. And when Thekla marries, and 
Aunt and Uncle Cotta are left alone, I 
think They may want me, and Cousin Eva ; 
may grow old among Else’s children, and 1 
all the grandchildren, helping one and an¬ 
other a little, and missed a little when God 
takes me. 

But chiefly I long to be near Aunt Cotta, 
now that Fritz is in that terrible prison. 
She always said I comforted her more than 
any one, and I think I may again. 

ELSE’S STORY. 

October , 1521. 

Christopher has just returned from a 
journey to Halle. They have dared once 
more to establish the sale of indulgences 
there, under the patronage of the young 
and self-indulgent Archbishop Albert of 
Mainz. Many of the students and the 
more thoughtful burghers are full of indig¬ 
nation at seeing the great red cross once 
more set up, and the heavenly pardons 
hawked through the streets for sale. This 
would not have been attempted, Gottfried 
feels sure, had not the enemy believed that 
Dr. Luther’s voice is silenced for ever. Let¬ 
ters from him are, however, privately hand¬ 
ed about among us here, and more than 
one of us know that he is in safe keeping 
not very far from us. 

November. 

Gottfried has just brought me the letter 
from Luther to the Archbishop of Mainz; 
which will at least convince the indulgence- 
mongers that they have roused the sleeping 

lion. 

He reminds the Archbishop-Elector that 
a conflagration has already been raised by 
the protest of one poor insignificant monk 
against Tetzel; he warns him that the God 
who gave strength to that feeble human 
voice because it spoke his truth, “ is living 
still, and will bring down the lofty cedars 
and the haughty Pharaohs, and can easily 
humble an Elector of Mainz although there 
were four Emperors supporting him.” He 
solemnly requires him to put down that 
avaricious sale of lying pardons at Mainz, 
or he will speedily publish a denunciation 
(which he has already written) against 
“The New School at Halle.” “For 
Luther,” he says, “ is not dead yet.” 


We are in great doubt how the Arch¬ 
bishop will bear such a bold remonstrance. 

November 20. 

The remonstrance has done its work. 
The Prince Archbishop has written a hum¬ 
ble and apologetic letter to Dr. Luther,and 
the indulgences are once more banished 
from Halle. 

At Wittenberg, however, Dr. Luther’s 
letters do not at all compensate for his 
presence. There is great confusion here, 
and not seldom there are encounters be¬ 
tween the opposing parties in the streets. 

Almost all the monks in the Augustinian 
Convent refused some weeks since to cele¬ 
brate private masses or to adore the host. 
The gentle Doctor Melancthon and the 
other doctors at first remonstrated, but 
were at length themselves convinced, and 
appealed to the Elector of Saxony himself 
to abolish these idolatrous ceremonies. We 
do not yet know how he will act. No 
public alterations have yet been made in 
the Church services. 

But the great event which is agitating 
Wittenberg now is the abandonment of the 
cloister and the monastic life by thirteen of 
the Augustinian monks. The Pastor Feld- 
kircheii declared against priestly vows, and 
married some months since. But he was 
only a secular priest; and the opinions of 
all good men about the marriage of the 
priests of the various churches have long 
been undivided amongst us. 

Concerning the monks, however, it is 
different. For the priests to marry is 
merely a change of state; for the monks to 
abandon their vows is the destruction of 
their order, and of the monastic life alto¬ 
gether. 

Gottfried and I are fully persuaded they 
are right; and we honor greatly these men, 
who, disclaiming maintenance at other 
people’s expense, are content to place 
themselves among the students at the Uni¬ 
versity. More especially, however, I honor 
the older or less educated brethren, who, 
relinquishing the consideration and idle 
plenty of the cloister, set themselves to 
learn some humble trade. One of these 
has apprenticed himself to a carpenter; 
and as we passed his bench-the other day, 
and watched him perseveringly trying to 
train his unaccustomed fingers to handle 
the tools, Gottfried took off his cap and re¬ 
spectfully saluted him, saying— 

“Yes, that is right. Christianity must 




152 


TEE SCEONEERG-COTTA FAMILY. 


begin again with the carpenter’s home at 
Nazareth. ’ ’ 

In our family, however, opinions are 
divided. Our dear, anxious mother per¬ 
plexes herself much as to what it will all 
lead to. It is true that Fritz’s second im- 
prisonment has greatly shaken her faith in 
the monks; but she is distressed at the un¬ 
settling tendencies of the age. To her it 
seems all destructive; and the only solution 
she can imagine for the difficulties of the 
times is, that these must be the latter days, 
and that when everything is pulled down, 
our Lord himself will come speedily to 
build up his kingdom in the right way. 

Deprived of the counsel of Fritz and her 
beloved Eva, and of Dr. Luther—in whom 
lately she had grown more to confide, al¬ 
though she always deprecates his impetuos¬ 
ity of language—she cannot make up her- 
mind what to think about anything. She 
has an especial dread of the vehemence of 
the Archdeacon Carlstadt; and the mild 
Melancthon is too much like herself in dis¬ 
position for her to lean on his judgment. 

Nevertheless, this morning, when I went 
to see them, I found her busily preparing 
some nourishing soup; which, when I asked 
her, she confessed was destined for the 
recusant monk who had become a carpenter. 

“ Poor creatures,” she said apologetically, 
“ they were accustomed to live well in the 
cloister, and I should not like them to feel 
the difference too suddenly.” 

Our grandmother is more than eighty 
now. Her form is still erect, although she 
seldom moves from her arm-chair; and her 
faculties seem little dimmed, except that 
she cannot attend to anything for any 
length of time. Sometimes I think old age 
to her is more like the tender days of 
early spring, than hard and frosty winter. 
Thekla says it seems as if this life were 
dawning softly for her into a better; or as 
if God were keeping her, like Moses, with 
undimmed e 5 ^es and strength unabated, 
till she may have the glimpse of the Prom¬ 
ised Land, and see the deliverance she has 
so long waited for close at hand. 

With our children she is as great a favor¬ 
ite as she was with us, although she seems 
to have forgotten her old ways of finding 
fault; either because she feels less responsi¬ 
bility about the third generation, or because 
she sees all their little faults through a 
mellowed light. 1 notice, too, that, she 
has fallen on quite a different vein of 


stories from those which used to rivet us. 
She seems to pass over the legendary lore 
of her early womanhood, back to the ex¬ 
periences of her own stirring youth and 
childhood. The mysteries of our grand¬ 
father’s history, which we vainly sought to 
penetrate, are all opened to Gretchen and 
the boys. The saints and hermits, whose 
adventures were our delight, are succeeded 
by stories of secret Hussite meetings to 
read the Scriptures among the forests and 
mountains of Bohemia; of wild retreats in 
caves, where whole families lived for 
months in concealment; of heart-rending 
captures or marvellous escapes. 

The heroes of my boys will be, not St. 
Christopher and St. George, but Hussite 
heretics ! My dear mother often throws in 
a warning word to the boys, and that were 
evil times, and that people do not need to 
lead such wild lives now. But the text 
makes far more impression on the children 
than the commentary. 

Our grandmother’s own chief delight is 
still in Dr. Luther’s writings. I have lately 
read over to her and my father, 1 know not 
how many times, his letter from the Wart- 
burg “to the little band of Christ at Witten¬ 
berg,” with his commentary accompanying 
it on the 37th Psalm—“ Fret not thyself 
because of evildoers.” 

Our dear father is full of the brightest 
visions. He is persuaded that the whole 
world is being rapidly set right, and that it 
matters little, indeed, that his inventions 
could not be completed, since we are ad¬ 
vancing at full speed into the Golden Age 
of humanity. 

Thus, from very opposite points and 
through very different paths, he and my 
mother arrive at the same conclusion. 

We have heard from Thekla that Ulrich 
has visited Dr. Luther at the Wartburg, 
where he is residing. I am so glad to know 
where he is. It is always so difficult to me 
to think of people without knowing the 
scene-around them. The figure itself seems 
to become shadowy in the vague, shad¬ 
owy, unknown world around it. It is this 
which adds to my distress about Fritz. 
Now I can think of Dr. Luther sitting in 
that large room in which I waited for the 
Elector with my embroidery, so many years 
ago—looking down the steep over the 
folded hills, reaching one behind another 
till the black pines and the green waving 
branches fade into lovely blue beneath the 



153 


ELS S'S STORY. 


golden horizon. And at sunset I seem to 
see how the shadows creep over the green 
valleys where we used to play, and the 
lurid sun lights up the red steins of the 
pines. 

Or in the summer noon I see him sitting 
with his books—great folios, Greek, and 
Hebrew, and Latin—toiling at that transla¬ 
tion of the Book of God, which is to be the 
blessing of all our people; while the warm 
sunbeams draw out the aromatic scent of 
the fir-woods, and the breezes bring it in at 
the open window. 

Or at early morning I fapcy him stand¬ 
ing by the castle walls, looking down on 
the towers and distant roofs of Eisenach, 
while the bell of the great convent booms 
up to him the hour; and he thinks of the 
busy life beginning in the streets, where 
once lie begged for bread at Aunt Ursula 
Cotta’s door. Dear Aunt Ursula, I wish 
she could have lived till now, to see the 
rich harvest an act of loving-kindness will 
sometimes bring forth. 

Or at night, again, when all sounds are 
hushed except the murmur of the unseen 
stream in the valley below, and the sighing 
of the wind through the forest, and that 
great battle begins which he has to fight so 
often with the powers of darkness, and he 
tries to pray, and cannot lift his heart to 
God, 1 picture him opening his casement, 
and looking down on forest, rock, and 
meadow, lying dim and lifeless beneath 
him, glance from these up to God, and re¬ 
assure himself with the truth he delights to 
utter— 

“God lives still /” feeling, as he gazes, 
that night is only hiding the sun, not 
quenching him, and watching till the grey 
of morning slowly steals up the sky and 
down into the forest. 

Yes, Dr. Melancthon has told us how he 
toils and how he suffers at the Wartburg, 
and how once he wrote, “ Are my friends 
forgetting to pray for me, that the conflict 
is so terrible ?” No; Gottfried remembers 
him always among our dearest names of 
kith and kindred. 

“ But,” he said to-day, “we must leave 
the training of our chief to God.” 

Poor, tried, perplexed Saint Elizabeth ! 
another royal heart is suffering at the Wart¬ 
burg now, another saint is earning his 
crown through the cross at the old castle 
home; but not to be canonized in the Papal 
Calendar! 


December 21. . 

The Chapter of the Augustinian Order in 
Thiiringen and Misnia has met here within 
the last month, to consider the question of 
the irrevocable nature of monastic vows. 
They have come to the decision that in 
Christ there is neither laymen nor monk; 
that each is free to follow his conscience. 

Christmas Day, 1521. 

This has been a great day with us. 

Archdeacon Carlstadt announced, some 
little time since, that he intended, on the 
approaching Feast of the Circumcision, to 
administer the holy sacrament to the laity 
under the two species of bread and wine. 
His right to do this having been disputed, 
he hastened the accomplishment of his 
purpose, lest it should be stopped by any 
prohibition from the court. 

To-day, after his sermon in the City 
Church, in which he spoke of the necessity 
of replacing the idolatrous sacrifice of the 
mass by the holy supper, he went to the 
altar, and, after pronouncing the consecra¬ 
tion of the elements in German, he turned 
towards the people, and said solemnly,— 

“ Whosoever feels heavy laden with the 
burden of iiis sins, and hungers and thirsts 
for the grace of God, let him come and 
receive the body and blood of the Lord.’' 

A brief silence followed his words, and 
then, to my amazement, before any one else 
stirred, I saw 'my timid, retiring mother 
slowly moving up the aisle, leading my 
father by the hand. Others followed; some 
with reverent, solemn demeanor, others 
perhaps with a little haste and over eager¬ 
ness. And as the last had retired from the 
altar, the archdeacon, pronouncing the gen¬ 
eral absolution, added solemnly,— 

“ Go, and sin no more.” 

A few moments’ pause succeeded, and 
then, from many voices here and there, 
gradually swelling to a full chorus, arose 
the Agnus Dei,— 

“ Lamb of God, who takest away the sin 
of the world, have mercy on us. Give us 
peace.” 

We spent the Christmas, as usual, in my 
father’s house. Wondering, as I did, at my 
mother’s boldness, I did not like to speak to 
her on the subject; but, as we sat alone in 
the afternoon, while our dear father, Gott¬ 
fried, Christopher, and the children, had 
gone to see the skating on the Elbe, she 
said to me,— 

“ Else, 1 could not help going. It seemed 





154 


THE SCHONBERG-COTTA FAMILY. 


like the voice of our Lord himself saying to 
me, ‘ Thou art heavy laden—cornel’ I never 
understood it all as I do now. It seemed 
as if I saw the Gospel with my eyes,—saw 
that the redemption is finished, and that 
now the feast is spread. I forgot to ques¬ 
tion whether I repented, or believed, or 
loved enough. 1 saw through the ages the 
body broken and the blood shed for me on 
Calvary; and now I saw the table spread, 
and heard the welcome, and I could not 
help taking your father’s hand and going up 
at once.” 

,, Yes, dear mother, you set the whole 
congregation the best example,” I said. 

“I!’‘ she exclaimed. “ Do you mean 
that I went up before any one else ? 
What! before all the holy men, and doctors, 
and the people in authority ? Else, my 
child, what have I done ? lint I did not 
think of myself, or of any one else. I only 
seemed to hear his voice calling me; and 
what could I do but go ? And, indeed, I 
cannot care now how it looked! Oh, Else,” 
she continued, “it is worth while to have 
the world thus agitated to restore this feast 
again to the Church; worth while.” she 
added with a trembling voice, “ even to 
have Fritz in prison for this. The blessed 
Lord has sacrificed himself for us, and we 
are living in the festival. He died for sin¬ 
ners. He spread the feast for the hungry 
and thirsty. Then those who feel their sins 
most must be not the last but the first to 
come. I see it all now. That holy sacra¬ 
ment is the Gospel for me.” 

February 10,1522. 

The whole town is in commotion. 

Men have appeared among us who say 
that the}' are directly inspired from heaven; 
that study is quite unnecessary—indeed, an 
idolatrous concession to the flesh and the 
letter; that it is wasting time and strength 
to translate the Holy Scriptures, since, 
without their understanding a word of 
Greek or Hebrew, God has revealed its 
meaning to their hearts. 

These men come from Zwickau. Two of 
them are cloth-weavers; and one is Munzer, 
who was a priest. They also declare them¬ 
selves to be prophets. Nicholas Storck, a 
weaver, their leader, has chosen twelve 
apostles and seventy-two disciples, in imita¬ 
tion of our Lord. And one of them ex¬ 
claimed, in awful tones, to-day in the 
streeets,— 

“ Woe, woe to the impious governors of 


Christendom! Within less than seven years 
the world shall be made desolate. The 
Turk shall overrun the land. No sinner 
shall remain alive. God will purify the 
earth by blood, and all the priests will be 
put to death. The saints will reign. The 
day of the Lord is at hand. Woe! woe? ” 

Opinions are divided throughout the 
University and the town about them. The 
Elector himself says he would rather yield 
up his crown and go through the world a 
beggar than resist the voice of the Lord. 
Dr, Melancthon hesitates, and says we must 
try the spirits, whether they be of God. 
The Archdeacon Carlstadt is much im¬ 
pressed with them, and from his profes¬ 
sorial chair even exhorts the students to 
abandon the vain pursuits of carnal wis¬ 
dom, and to return to earn their bread, 
according to God’s ordinance, in the sweat 
of their brow. The master of the boys’ 
school called, from the open window of the 
school-room, to the citizens to take back 
their children. Not a few of the students 
are dispersing, and others are in an excit¬ 
able state, ready for any tumult. The 
images have been violently torn from one 
of the churches and burnt. The monks of 
the Convent of the Cordeliers have called 
the soldiers to their aid against a threatened 
attack. 

Gottfried and others are persuaded that 
these men of Zwickau are deluded enthu¬ 
siasts. He says, “The spirit which under¬ 
values the Word of God cannot be the 
Spirit of God.” 

But among the firmest opponents of these 
new doctrines is, to our surprise, our char¬ 
itable mother. Her gentle, lowly spirit 
seems to shrink from them as with a 
heavenly instinct. She says, “ the Spirit of 
God humbles—does not puff up.” 

When it was reported to us the other day 
that Nicholas Storck had seen the Angel 
Gabriel in the night, who flew towards him 
and said to him, “As for thee, thou shalt 
be seated on my throne!” the mother 
said,— 

“ It is new language to the angel Gabriel, 
to speak of his throne. The angels in old 
times used to speak of the throne of God.” 

And when another said that it was time to 
sift the chaff from the wheat, and to form 
a Church of none but saints, she said,— 

“ That would never suit me then. 1 must 
stay outside, in the Church of redeemed 
sinners. And did not St. Paul himself say, 





ELSE S 

as Dr. Luther told us, ‘ Sinners, of whom I 
am chief ?’ ” 

“ But are you not afraid,” some one 
asked her, ‘ ‘ of dishonoring God by deny¬ 
ing his messengers, if, after all, these 
prophets should be sent from him ?” 

“I think not,” she replied quietly. “Until 
the doctors are sure, I think I cannot dis¬ 
please my Saviour by keeping to the old 
message.” 

My father, however, is much excited 
about it; he sees no reason why there should 
not be prophets at Wittenberg as well as at 
Jerusalem; and in these wonderful days, 
he argues, what wonders can be too great 
to believe ? 

I and many others long exceedingly for 
Dr. Luther. 1 believe, indeed, Gottfried 
is right, but it will be terrible to make a 
mistake; and Dr. Luther always seems to 
see straight to the heart of a thing at once, 
and storms the citadel, while Dr. Melanc- 
thon is going round and round, studying 
each point of the fortifications. 

Dr. Luther never wavers in opinion in his 
letters, but warns us most forcibly against 
these delusions of Satan. But then people 
say he has not seen or heard the “ proph¬ 
ets.” One letter can be discussed and 
answered long before another comes, and 
the living eye'and voice are much in such a 
conflict as this. 

What chief could lead an army on to 
battle by letters ? 

February 26, 1522. 

Our dove of peace has come back to our 
home; our Eva! This evening when 1 went 
over with a message to my mother, to my 
amazement I saw her sitting with her hand 
in my fathers, quietly reading to him the 
twenty-third psalm, while my grandmother 
sat listening, and my mother was content¬ 
edly knitting beside them. 

It seemed as if she had scarcely been 
absent a day, so quietly had she glided into 
her old place. It seemed so natural, and 
yet so like a dream, that the sense of won¬ 
der passed from me as it does in dreams, 
and I went up to her and kissed her fore¬ 
head . 

“ Dear Cousin Else, is it you?” she said. 
“ I intended to have come to you the first 
thing to-morrow.” 

The dear, peaceful, musical voice, what a 
calm it shed over the home again! 

“ You see you have all left Aunt Cotta,” 
she said, with a slight tremulousness in 


STORY. 158 

her tone, “ so I am come back to be with 
her always, if she will let me.” 

There were never any pretensions of 
affection between my mother and Eva, they 
understood each other so completely. 

February 28. 

Yes, it is no dream. Eva has left the 
convent, and is one of us once more. Now 
that she has resumed all her old ways, I 
wonder more than ever how we could have 
got on without her. She speaks as quietly 
of her escape from the convent, and her 
lonely journey across the country, as if it 
were the easiest and most everyday occur¬ 
rence. She says every one seemed anxious 
to help her and take care of her. 

She is very little changed. Hers was not 
a face to change. The old guileless ex¬ 
pression is on her lips—the same trustful, 
truthful light in her dark soft eyes; the 
calm, peaceful brow, that always reminded 
one of a sunny, cloudless sky, is calm and 
bright still; and around it the golden hair, 
not yet grown from its conventual cutting, 
clusters in little curls, which remind me of 
her first days with us at Eisenach. Only 
all the character of the face seems deep¬ 
ened, I cannot say shadowed, but pene¬ 
trated with that kind of look which I fancy 
must always distinguish the faces of the 
saints above from those of the angels,— 
those who have suffered from those who 
have only sympathized; that deep, tender, 
patient, trusting, human look, which is 
stamped on those who have passed to the 
heavenly rapturous “Thy will be done,” 
through the agony of “Not my will, but 
Thine.” 

At first Gretchen met her with the kind 
of reverent face she has at church; and she 
asked me afterwards, “ Is that really the 
Cousin Eva in the picture?” But now 
there is the most familiar intimacy between 
them, and Gretchen confidingly and elabo¬ 
rately expounds to Cousin Eva all her most 
secret plans and delights. The boys, also, 
have a most unusual value for her good 
opinion, and appear to think her judgment 
beyond that of ordinary women; for yes¬ 
terday little Fritz was eagerly explaining 
to her the virtues of a new bow that had 
been given him, formed in the English 
fashion. 

She is very anxious to set nine young 
nuns, who have embraced the Lutheran 
doctrine, free from Nimptschen. Gottfried 




156 


THE SCHONBERG-COTTA FAMILY . 


thinks it very difficult, but by no means im¬ 
practicable in time. 

Meanwhile, what a stormy world our 
clove has returned to!—the University well- 
nigh disorganized; the town in commotion; 
and no German Bible yet in any one’s 
hands, by which, as Gottfried says, the 
claims of these new prophets might be. 
tested. 

Yet it does not seem to depress Eva. She 
says it seems to her like coming out of the 
ark into anew world; and, no doubt, Noah 
did not find everything laid out in order for 
him. She is quite on my mother’s side 
about the prophets. She says, the apostles 
preached not themselves, but Christ Jesus 
the Lord. If the r Zwiekau prophets preach 
Him, they preach nothing new ; and if' 
they preach themselves, neither God nor 
the angel Gabriel gave them that message. 

Our great sorrow is Fritz’s continued im¬ 
prisonment. At first we felt sure he would 
escape, but every month lessens our hopes, 
until we scarcely dare speak of him except 
in our prayers. Yet daily, together with 
his deliverance* Gottfried and 1 pray for 
the return of Dr. Luther, and for the pros¬ 
perous completion of his translation of the 
German Bible, which Gottfried believes will 
be the greatest boon Dr. Luther has given, 
or can ever give, to the German people, and 
through them to Chrisdendom, 


XVIII. 

ELSE’S STORY. 

Saturday , March 8,1522. 

The great, warm heart is beating amongst 
us once more. 

Dr. Luther is once more dwelling quietly 
in the Augustinian cloister, which he left for 
Worms a year ago. What changes since 
then ! He left us amidst our tears and 
vain entreaties not to trust his precious life 
to the Treacherous safe-conduct which had 
entrapped John Huss to the stake. 

He returns unscathed and triumphant— 
the defender of the good cause before em¬ 
peror, prelates, and princes,—the hero of 
our German people. 

He left citizens and students for the most 
part trembling at the daring of his words 
and deeds. 

He returns to find students and Burghers 
impetuously and blindly rushing on in the 


track he opened, beyond his judgment and 
convictions. 

He left, the foremost in the attack, tim¬ 
idly followed as he hurried forward, brav¬ 
ing death alone. 

He returns to recall the scattered forces, 
dispersed and divided in wild and impet¬ 
uous pursuit. 

Will, then, his voice be as powerful to 
recall and reorganize as it was to urge 
forward? 

He wrote to the Elector, on his way from 
the Wartburg, disclaiming his protection— 
declaring that he returned to the flock God 
had committed to him at Wittenberg, called 
and constrained by God himself, and under 
mightier protection than that of an elector ! 
The sword, he said, could not defend the 
truth. The mightiest are those whose faith 
is mightiest. Relying on his master, Christ, 
and on him alone, he came. 

Gottfried says it is fancy, but already it 
seems to me I see a difference in the town— 
less bold, loud talking, than the day before 
yesterday; as in a family of eager, noisy 
boys, whose father is amongst them again. 
But after to-morrow, we shall be able to 
judge better. He is to preach in the city 
pulpit. 

Monday, March 10, 1522. 

We have heard him preach once more. 
Thank God, those days in the wilderness 
as he called it, have surely not been lost for 
Dr. Luther. 

As he stood again in the pulpit, many 
among the crowded congregation could not 
refrain from shedding tears of joy. In 
that familiar form, and truthful, earnest 
face, we saw the man who had stood un¬ 
moved before the emperor and all the great 
ones of the empire—alone, upholding the 
truth of God. 

Many of us saw, moreover, with even 
deeper emotion, the sufferer who, during 
those last ten months, had stood before an 
enemy more terrible than pope or emperor, 
in the solitude of the Wartburg; and while 
his own heart and flesh were often well- 
nigh failing in the conflict, had never failed 
to carry on the struggle bravely and triumph¬ 
antly for us his flock; sending masterly 
replies to the University of Paris; smiting 
the lying traffic with indulgences, by one 
noble remonstrance, from the trembling 
hands of the Archbishop of Mainz; writing 
letter after letter of consolation or fatherly 







ELSE'S STORY. 


157 


counsel to the little flock of Christ at Wit¬ 
tenberg; and through all, toiling at that 
translation of the Word of God, which is 
the great hope of our country. 

But older, tenderer, more familiar asso¬ 
ciations, mstered all the others when we 
heard his voice again—the faithful voice 
that had warned and comforted us so long 
in public and in private. To others, Dr. 
Luther might be the hero of Worms, the 
teacher of Germany, the St. George who 
had smitten the dragon of falsehood; to us 
he was the true, affectionate pastor; and 
many of us, I believe, heard little of the 
first words of his sermon, for the mere joy 
of hearing his voice again, as the clear 
deep tones vibrated through the silent 
church. 

He began with commending our faith. 
He said we had made much progress during 
his absence. But he went on to say, “We 
must have more than faith—we must have 
love. If a man with a sword in his hand 
happens to be alone, it matters little whether 
he keep it in the scabbard or not; but if 
he is in the midst of a crowd, he must take 
care to hold it so as not to hurt any one. 

“A mother begins with giving her infant 
milk. Would it live if she gave it first 
meat and wine ? 

“ But thou, my friend, hast, perhaps, had 
enough of milk. It may be well for thee. 
Yet let thy weaker, younger brother take 
it. The time was when thou also couldst 
have taken nothing else. 

“ See the sun ! It brings us two things 
—light and heat. The rays of light beam 
directly on us. No king is powerful enough 
to intercept those keen, direct, swift rays. 
But heat is radiated back to us from every 
side. Thus, like the light, faith should 
ever be direct and inflexible; but love, like 
the heat, should radiate on all sides, and 
meekly adapt itself to the wants of all. 

“The abolition of the mass, you say,” 
he* continued, “is according to Scripture. 
1 agree with you. But in abolishing it, 
what regard had you for order and decency? 
You should have offered fervent prayers to 
God, public authority should have been 
applied to, and every one would have seen 
then that the thing came from God. 

“The mass is a bad thing; God is its 
enemy; it ought to be abolished; and I 
would that throughout the whole world it 
were superseded by the Supper of the Gos¬ 
pel. But let none tear any one away from 


it with violence. The matter ought to be 
committed to God. It is his Word that 
must act, and not we. And wherefore, do 
you say ? Because I do not hold the hearts 
of men in my hand as the potter holds the 
clay in his. Our work is to speak; God 
will act. Let us preach. The rest belongs 
to him. If I employ force, what do I gain? 
Changes in demeanor, outward shows, 
grimaces, shams, hypocrisies. But what 
becomes of sincerity of heart, of faith, of 
Christian love ? All is wanting where these 
are wanting; and for the rest 1 would not 
give the stalk of a pear. 

“ What .we want is the heart; and to win 
that, we must preach the Gospel. Then the 
world will draw to-day into one heart, to¬ 
morrow into another, and will so work that 
each will forsake the mass. God effects 
more than you and I and the whole world 
combined could attempt. He secures the 
heart; and when that is won all is won. 

“Isay not this in order to re-establish 
the mass. Since it has been put down, in 
God’s name let it remain so. But ought it 
to have been put down in the way it has 
been? St. Paul, on arriving at the great 
city of Athens, found altars there erected to 
false gods. He passed from one to another, 
made his own reflections on all, but touched 
none. But he returned peaceably to the 
Forum, and declared to the people that all 
those gods were mere idols. This declara¬ 
tion laid hold of the hearts of some, and the 
idols fell without Paul’s touching them. I 
would preach, I would speak, I would write, 
but I would lay constraint on no one; for 
faith is a voluntary thing. See what I have 
done! 1 rose in opposition to the pope, to 
indulgences, and the Papists; but 1 did so 
without tumult or violence. I pressed be¬ 
fore all things the Word of God; I preached, 
1 wrote; I did nothing else. And while'I 
was asleep, or seated at table in conversa¬ 
tion with Amsdorf or Melancthon, over our 
Wittenberg beer, that Word which I had 
been preaching was working, and subverted 
the problem as never before it was damaged 
by assault of prince or emperor. I did 
nothing; all was done by the Word. Had 
I sought to appeal to force, Germany might 
by this time have been steeped in blood. 
And what would have been -the result ? 
Ruin and desolation of soul and body. I 
therefore kept myself quiet, and left the 
Word to force its own way through the 
world. Know you what the devil thinks 




158 


THE 8CH0NBERG-COTTA FAMILY . 


when he sees people employ violence in 
disseminating the Gospel among men ? 
Seated with his arms crossed behind hell- 
lire, Satan says, with a malignant look and 
hideous leer, ‘Ah, but these fools are wise 
men, indeed, to do my work for me!’ But 
when he sees the Word go forth and engage 
alone on the field of battle, then he feels ill 
at ease; his knees smite against each other, 
he shudders and swoons away with terror.” 

Quietly and reverently, not with loud 
debatings and noisy protestations of what 
they would do next, the congregation dis¬ 
persed. 

The words of forbearance came with such 
weight from that daring, fearless heart, 
which has braved the wrath of popedom 
and empire alone for God, and still braves 
excommunication and ban! 

' Wednesday, March 11. 

r Yesterday again Dr. Luther preached. 
He earnestly warned us against the irrev¬ 
erent participation in the holy sacrament. 
“It is not the external eating, which 
makes the Christian,” he said; “It is 
the internal and spiritual eating, which is 
the work of faith, and without which all 
external things are mere empty shows and 
vain grimaces. Now this faith consists in 
firmly believing that Jesus Christ is the Son 
of God; that having charged himself with 
our sins and our iniquities, and having 
borne them on the cross, he is himself the 
sole, the all-sufficient expiation; that he 
ever appears before God; that lie recon¬ 
ciles us to the Father, and that he has 
given us the sacrament of his body in order 
to strengthen our faith in that unutterable 
mercy. If I believe these things, God is 
my defender: with him on my side, I 
brave sin, death, hell, and demons; they 
can do me no harm, nor even touch a hair 
of my head. This spiritual bread is the 
consolation of the afflicted, the cure of the 
sick, the life of the dying, the food of the 
hungry, the treasure of the poor. He who 
is not grieved by his sins, ought not, then, 
to approach this altar. What would he do 
there? Ah, did our conscience accuse us, 
did our heart feel crushed at the thought of 
our short-comings, we could not then lightly 
approach the holy sacrament.” 

There were more among us than the 
monk Gabriel Didymus (a few days since 
one of the most devoted of the violent fac¬ 
tion; now sober and brought to his right 


mind), that could say as we listened, 
“ Verily it is as the voice of an angel.” 

But, thank God, it is not the voice of an 
angel, but a human voice vibrating to every 
feeling of our hearts—the voice of our own 
true, outspoken Martin Luther, who will, we 
trust, now remain with us to build up with 
the same word which has already cleared 
away so much. 

And yet I cannot help feeling as if his 
absence had done its work for us as well as 
his return. If the hands of violence can be 
arrested now, I cannot but rejoice they 
have done as much as they have. 

Now, let Dr. Luther’s principles stand. 
Abolish nothing that is not directly pro¬ 
hibited by the holy Scriptures. 

March 30. 

Dr, Luther’s eight discourses are finished, 
and quiet is restored to Wittenberg. The 
students resume their studies, the boys re¬ 
turn to school; each begins with a lowly 
heart once more the work of his calling. 

No one has been punished. Luther would 
not have force employed either against the 
superstitious or the unbelieving innovators. 
“Liberty,” he says, “is of the essence of 
faith.” 

With his tender regard for the sufferings 
of others we do not wonder so much at 
this. 

But we all wonder far more at the gentle¬ 
ness of his words. They say the bravest 
soldiers make the best nurse&_jG >f the ir 
wounded comrades. Luthers hand seems 
to have laid aside the battle-axe, and com¬ 
ing among his sick and wounded and per¬ 
plexed people here, he ministers to them 
gently as the kindest woman—as our own 
mother could, who is herself won over to 
love and revere him with all her heart. 

Not a bitter word has escaped him, al¬ 
though the cause these disorders are risking 
is the cause for which he has risked his life. 

And there are no more tumults in the 
streets. The frightened Cordelier monks 
may carry on their ceremonies without ter¬ 
ror, or the aid of soldiery. All the war¬ 
like spirits are turned once more from 
raging against small external things, to the 
great battle beginning everywhere against 
bondage and superstition. 

Dr. Luther himself has engaged Dr. 
Melancthon’s assistance in correcting and 
perfecting the translation of the New Tes¬ 
tament he accomplished in the solitude of 






ATLANTIS' STONY . 159 


the Wartburg. Their friendship seems 
closer than ever. * 

Christophers's press is in the fullest activ¬ 
ity, and all seem full of happy, orderly 
occupation again. 

Sometimes I tremble when I think how 
much we seem to depend upon Dr. Luther, 
lest we should make an idol of him; but 
Thekla, who is amongst us again, said to 
me when I expressed this fear,— 

“Ah, dear Else, it is the old superstition. 
When God gives us a glorious summer and 
good harvest, are we to receive it coldly 
and enjoy it tremblingly, lest lib should 
send us a bad season next year to prevent 
our being too happy ? If he sends the dark 
days, will he not also give us a lamp for 
our feet through them ?” 

And even our gentle mother said,— 

“ I think if God gives us a staff, Else, he 
intends us to lean on it.” 

“And when he takes it away,” said Eva, 
“ I think he is sure to give us his own hand 
instead. I think what grieves God is, when 
we use his gifts for what he did not intend 
them to be; as if, for instance, we were to 
plant our staff instead of leaning on it; or 
to set it up as an image and adore it, in¬ 
stead of resting on it and adoring God. 
Then , I suppose, we might have to learn 
that our idol was not in itself a support, or 
living thing at all, but only a piece of life¬ 
less wood.” 

“Yes,” said Thekla decidedly, “when 
God gives us friends, I believe he means us 
to love them as much as we can. And when 
he gives us happiness, I am sure lie means 
us to enjoy it as much as we can. And 
when he gives soldiers a good general, he 
means them to trust and follow him. And 
when he gives us back Dr. Luther and 
Cousin Eva,” she added, drawing Eva’s 
hand from her work and covering it with 
kisses, “ I am quite sure he means us to 
welcome them with all our hearts, and feel 
that we can never make enough of them. 
O Else,” she added, smiling,” you will never, 
I am afraid, be set quite free from the old 
fetters. Every now and then we shall hear 
them clanking about you, like the chains of 
the family ghost of the Gersdorfs, You 
will never quite believe, dear good sister, 
that God is not better pleased with you when 
you are sad than when you are happy.” 

“ He is often nearest,” said Eva softly, 
“when we are sad.” And Thekla’s lip 


quivered and her eyes filled with tears as 
she replied in a different tone,— 

“ I think I know that too, Cousin Eva.” 

Poor child, she has often had to prove it. 
Her heart must often ache when she thinks 
of the perilous position of Bertrand de 
Crequi among his hostile kindred in Flan¬ 
ders. And it is therefore she cannot bear a 
shadow of a doubt to be thrown on the cer¬ 
tainty of their re-union. 

The evangelical doctrine is enthusiastic¬ 
ally welcomed at Antwerp and other cities 
of the Low Countries. But, on the other 
hand, the civil and ecclesiastical authorities 
oppose it vehemently, and threaten persecu¬ 
tion. 

May , 1522. 

Dr. Luther has had an interview with 
Mark Stiibner, the schoolmaster Cellarius, 
and others of the Zwickau prophets and 
their disciples. He told them plainly that 
he believed their violent, self-willed, fanat¬ 
ical proceedings were suggested, not by 
the Holy Spirit of love and truth, but by 
the spirit of lies and malice. Yet he is said 
to have listened to them with quietness. 
Cellaraius, they say, foamed and gnashed 
his teeth with rage, but Stubner showed 
more self-restraint. 

However, the prophets have all left Wit¬ 
tenberg, and quiet is restored. 

A calm has come down on the place, and 
on every home in it—the calm of order and 
subjection instead of the restlessness of 
self-will. And all has been accomplished 
through the presence and the words of the 
man whom God lias sent to be our leader, 
and whom we acknowledge. Not one act 
of violence has been done since he came. 
He would suffer no constraint either on the 
consciences of the disciples of the “ proph¬ 
ets,” or on those of the old superstition. 
He relies, as we all do, on the effect of the 
translation of the Bible into German, which 
is now quietly and rapidly advancing. 

Every week the doctors meet in the Au- 
gustinian Convent, now all but empty, to 
examine the work done, and to consult 
about difficult passages. When once this 
is accomplished, they believe God will 
speak through those divine pages direct to 
all men’s hearts, and preachers and doctors 
may retire to their lowly subordinate places. 

ATLANTIS’ STORY. 

Chriemhild and I have always been the 
least clever of the family, and with much 






160 


THE SCHONB ERG-COTTA FAMILY. 


less that is destinctive about us. Indeed, 
1 do not think there is anything particularly 
characteristic about us, except our being 
twins. Thekla says we are pure Saxons, 
and have neither of us anything of the im¬ 
petuous Czech or Bohemian blood; which 
may so far be good for me, because Conrad 
has not a little of the vehement Swiss char¬ 
acter in him. Every one always spoke of 
Chriemhild and me, and thought of us to¬ 
gether; and when they called us the beau¬ 
ties of the family, I think they chiefly 
meant that we looked pleasant together by 
contrast. Thekla says God sends the flow¬ 
ers into the world as twins; contrasting 
with each other just as we did—the dark- 
eyed violets with the fair primroses, golden 
gorse, and purple heather. Chriemhild she 
used sometimes to call sister Primrose, 
and me sister Violet. Chriemhild, how¬ 
ever, is beautiful by herself without me, 
—so tall, and fair, and placid, and com¬ 
manding-looking, with her large gray eyes, 
her calm broad brow, and her erect full 
figure, which always made her gentle man¬ 
ner seem condescending like a queen’s. 
But I am nothing without Chriemhild; only 
people used to like to see my small light 
figure, and my black eyes and hair, beside 
hers. 

I wonder what Conrad Winkelried’s peo¬ 
ple will think of me in that far-off moun¬ 
tainous Switzerland whither he is to take 
me ! He is sure they will all love me; but 
how can I tell? Sometimes my heart flut¬ 
ters a great deal to think of leaving home, 
and Else and the dear mother, and all. It 
is true Chriemhild seemed to find it quite 
natural when the time came, but she is so 
different. Every one was sure to be pleased 
with Chriemhild. 

And I am so accustomed to love and 
kindness. They all know me so well here, 
and how much less clever I am than the 
rest, that they all bear with me tenderly. 
Even Thekla, who is often a little vehe¬ 
ment, is always gentle with me, although 
she may laugh a little sometimes when I 
say anything more foolish than usual. I 
am so often making discoveries of things 
that every one else knew long since. I do 
not think I am so much afraid on my own 
account, because I have so little right to 
expect anything, and always get so much 
more than I deserve from our dear heavenly 
Father and from every one. Only on Con¬ 
rad’s account 1 should like to be a little 


wiser, because he knows so many lan¬ 
guages, and is so very clever. When I 
spoke to Else about it once, she smiled and 
said she had the same kind of fears once, 
but if we ask him, God will always give us 
just the wisdom we want day by day. It 
is part of the “daily bread,” she said. 
And certainly Else is not learned, and yet 
every one loves her, and she does so much 
good in a quiet way. But then, although 
she is not learned, she seems to me wise in 
little things. And she used to write a 
Chronicle when she was younger than I 
am. She.told me so, although I have never 
seen it. I have been thinking that perhaps 
it is writing the Chronicle that has made 
her wise, and therefore I intend to try to 
write one. But as at present I can think 
of nothing to say of my own, I will begin 
by copying a narrative Conrad lent me to 
read a few days since, written by a young 
Swiss student, a friend of bis, who had just 
come to Wittenberg from St. Gall, where 
his family live. His name is Johann Kess¬ 
ler, and Conrad thinks him very good and 
diligent. 

“ Copy of Johann Kessler's Narrative. 

“ As we were journeying towards Wit¬ 
tenberg to study the Holy Scriptures, at 
Jena we encountered a fearful tempest, and 
after many inquiries in the town for an inn 
where we might pass the night, we could 
find none, either by seeking or asking; no 
one would give us a night’s lodging. For 
it was carnival time, when people have little 
care for pilgrims and strangers. So we 
went forth again from the town, to try if 
we could find a village where we might rest 
for the night. 

“ At the gate, however, a respectable¬ 
looking man met us, and spoke kindly to 
us, and asked whither we journeyed so late 
at night, since in no direction could we 
reach house or inn where we could find 
shelter before dark night set in. Jt was, 
moreover, a road easy to lose; he counselled 
us, therefore, to remain all night where we 
were. 

“ We answered, 

“ ‘ Dear father, we have been at all the 
inns, and they sent us from one to another; 
everywhere they refused us lodging; we 
have, therefore, no choice but to journey 
further.’ 

“Then he asked if we had also inquired 
at the sign of the Black Bear. 

“ Then we said, 




ATLANTIS' STORY. 


161 


“ ‘ We have not seen it. Friend, where 
is it ? 

“ Then he led tis a little out of the town. 
And when we saw the Black Bear, lo, 
whereas all the other landlords had refused 
us shelter, the landlord there came himself 
out at the gate' to receive us, bade us wel¬ 
come, and led us into the room. 

“ There we found a man sitting alone at 
the table, and before him lay a little book. 
He greeted us kindly, asked us to draw 
near, and to place ourselves by him at the 
table. For our shoes (may we be excused 
for writing it) were so covered with mud 
and dirt, that we were ashamed to dnter 
boldly into the chamber, and had seated 
ourselves on a little bench in a corner near 
the door. 

‘‘Then he asked us to drink, which we 
. could not refuse. When we saw how cor- 
I dial and friendly he was, we seated our¬ 
selves near him at his table as he had asked 
i us, and ordered wine that we might ask 
| him to drink in return. We thought noth- 
| ing else but that he was a trooper, as he sat 
! there, according to the custom of the coun- 
j try, in hosen and tunic, without armor, a 
sword by his side, his right hand on the 
pommel of the sword, his left grasping its 
i hilt. His eyes were black and deep, flash- 
I ing and beaming like a star, so that they 
could not well be looked at. 

“ Soon he began to ask what was our na¬ 
tive country. But he himself replied, 

“ ‘ You are Switzers. From what part of 
Switzerland?’ 

“We answered, 

“ ‘ From St. Gall.’ 

“ Then he said, 

“ ‘ If you are going hence to Wittenberg, 
as I hear, you will find good fellow-coun¬ 
trymen there, namely, Doctor Hieronymus 
Schurf, and his brother, Doctor Augustin.’ 

“We said, 

“ ‘ We have letters to them.’ And then 
i he inquired. 

“‘Sir, can you inform us if Martin 
Luther is now at Wittenberg, or if not 
where he is ?’ 

“He said, 

‘I have reliable information that Luther 
■S’ not now at Wittenberg. He will, how¬ 
ever, soon be there. Philip Melancthon is 
there now; he teaches Greek, and others 
teach Hebrew. I counsel you earnestly to 
study both, for both are necessary in order 
to understand the Holy Scriptures. 


“ We said, 

“ ‘God be praised! For if God spare 
our lives we will not depart till we see and 
hear that man ; since on his account have 
we undertaken this journey, because we 
understood that he purposes to abolish the 
priesthood, together with the mass, as an 
unfounded worship. For as we have from 
our youth been destined by our parents 
to be priests, we would know what kind of 
instruction he will give us, and on what 
authority he seeks to effect such an object.’ 

“After these words, he asked, 

“ ‘Where have you studied hitherto ?’ 

“Answer, ‘At Basel.’ 

“Then said he, ‘ How goes it at Basel? 
Is Erasmus of Rotterdam still there, and 
what is he doing ? ’ 

“ ‘Sir,’ said we, ‘we know not that things 
are going on there otherwise than well. 
Also, Erasmus is there, but what he is occu¬ 
pied with is unknown to any one, for he 
keeps himself very quiet, and in great 
seclusion.’ 

“ This discourse seemed to us very strange 
in the trooper; that he should know how to 
speak of both the Scliurfs, of Philip, and 
Erasmus, and also of the study of Hebrew 
and Greek. 

“ Moreover, he now and then used Latin 
words, so that we deemed he must be more 
than a common trooper. 

“ ‘Friend,’ he asked, ‘wliat do they think 
in Switzerland of Luther?’ 

“‘Sir, there, as elsewhere, there are 
various opinions. Many cannot enough 
exalt him, and praise God that He has made 
his truth plain through him, and laid error 
bare; many on the other hand, and among 
these more especially the clergy, condemn 
him as a reprobate heretic.’ 

“ Then he said, ‘ 1 can easily believe it is 
the clergy that speak thus.’ 

“With such conversation we grew quite 
confidential, so that my companion took 
up the little book that lay before him, and 
looked at it. It was a Hebrew Psalter. 
Then he laid it quickly down again, and 
the trooper drew it to himself. And my 
companion said, ‘ I would give a finger 
from my hand to understand that lan¬ 
guage.’ 

“He answered, ‘You will soon compre¬ 
hend it, if you are diligent: I also desire 
to understand it better, and practice myself 
daily in it.* 

“ Meantime the day declined, and it 





162 


TEE SCEOEB ERG-COTTA FAMILY . 


became quite dark when the host came to 
the table. 

“ When he understood our fervent desire 
and longing to see Martin Luther, he said, 

“ ‘Good friends, if you had been here 
two days ago, you would have had your 
wish, for he sat here at table, and (point¬ 
ing with his finger) ‘in that place.’ 

“It vexed and fretted us much that we 
should have lingered on the way; and we 
vented our anger on the muddy and wretch¬ 
ed roads that had delayed us. 

“ But, we added, 

“ It rejoices us, however, to sit in the 
house and at the table where he sat. 

“Thereat the host laughed, and went out 
at the door. 

“After a little while, he called me to 
come to him at the door of the chamber. I 
was alarmed, fearing I had done something 
unsuitable, or that I had unwittingly given 
some offence. But the host said to me— 

“ ‘ Since I perceive that you so much 
wish to see and hear Luther,—that is he 
who is sitting with you.’ 

“ I thought he was jesting, and said— 

“ ‘Ah, Sir Host, you would befool me and 
my wishes with a false image of Luther!’ 

“ He answered— 

“ ‘ It is certainly he. But do not seem 
as if you knew this.’ 

“ I could not believe it; but 1 went back 
into the room, and longed to tell my com¬ 
panion what the host had disclosed to me. 
At last I turned to him, and whispered 
softly— 

“ The host has told me that is Luther.’ 

“ ‘He like me could not at once believe 
it, and said— 

“ ‘ He said, perhaps, it was Hutten, and 
thou hast misunderstood him.’ 

“ ‘ And because the stranger’s bearing 
and military dress suited Hutten bettertlian 
Luther, 1 suffered myself to be persuaded 
he had said “ It is Hutten,’since the two 
names had a somewhat similar sound. 
What I said further, therefore, was on the 
supposition that 1 was conversing with Huld- 
rich ab Hutten, the knight. 

“ ‘While this was going on, two mer¬ 
chants arrived, who intended also to remain 
the night; and after they had taken off 
their outer coats and spurs, one laid down 
beside him an unbound book. 

“ ‘ Thefi he the Host had (as I thought) 
called Martin Luther, asked what the book 
was. 


“ ‘ It i - Dr. Martin Luther’s Exposition 
of certain Gospels and Epistles, just pub¬ 
lished. Have you not 3 r et seen it ?’ 

“ ‘ Said Martin, ‘ It will soon be sent to 
me.’ 

“ Then said the host— 

“ ‘ Place yourselves at table; we will eat.’ 

“ But we besought him to excuse us, and 
give us a place apart. But he said— 

“ ‘Good friends, seat yourselves at the 
table. 1 will see that you are welcome.’ 

“ When Martin heard that, he said— 

“ ‘Come, come, I will settle the score 
with the host by-and-by.’ 

“ During the meal, Martin said many 
pious and friendly words, so that the mer¬ 
chants and we were dumb before him, and 
heeded his discourse far more than our food. 
Among other things, he complained, with 
a sigh, how the princes and nobles were 
gathered at the Diet at Nilrnberg on ac¬ 
count of God’s word, many difficult matters, 
and the oppression of the German naiion, 
and yet seemed to have no purpose but to 
bring about better times by means of tour¬ 
neys, sleigh-rides, and all kinds of vain, 
courtly pleasures; whereas the fear of God 
and Christian prayer would accomplish so 
much more. 

“ ‘ Yet these,’ said he, sadly, ‘are our 
Christian princes!’ 

“Further, he said, ‘We must hope that 1 
the evangelical truth will bring forth better *' 
fruit in our children and successors—who ■■ 
will never have been poisoned by papal ^ 
error, but will be planted in the pure truth I 
and word of God—than in their parents, in j 
whom these errors are so deeply rooted that < 
they are hard to eradicate.’ 

“After this, the merchants gave their 1 
opinion, and the elder of them said— 

“ ‘ I am a simple, unlearned layman, and 
have no special understanding of these mat- ,1 
ters; but as I look at the thing, I say, Luther \ 
must either be an angel from heaven or a 
devil from hell. I would gladly give ten 
florins to be confessed by him, for I believe ; 
he could and would enlighten my con¬ 
science.’ 

“ Meantime the host came secretly to us 
and said— 

“ ‘ Martin has paid for your supper.’ 

“ This pleased us much, not on account 
of the gold or the meal, but because that 
man had made us his guests. 

“After supper, the merchants rose and 
went into the stable to look after their 





ATLANTIS' STORY. 


163 


horses. Meanwhile Martin remained jn the 
room with us, and we thanked him for his 
kindness and generosity, and ventured to 
say we took him to be HuJdrich ab Hutten. 
But lie said— 

‘“I am not he.’ 

'‘Thereupon the host came and Martin 
said— 

“ ‘I have to-night become a nobleman, 
for these Switzers take me for Huldricli ab 
llutten.’ 

“And then he laughed at the jest, and 
said— 

“ They take me for Hutten, and you take 
me for Luther. Soon I shall become Mar- 
kolfus the clown.’ 

“And after this he took a tall beer-glass 
and said, according to the custom of the 
country— 

“ ‘Switzers, drink after me a friendly 
draught to each other’s welfare.’ 

“ But as I was about to take the glass 
from him, he changed it, and ordered, in¬ 
stead, a glass of wine, and said: 

“ ‘ Beer is a strange and unwonted bev¬ 
erage to you. Drink the wine.’ 

“Thereupon he stood up, threw his man¬ 
tle over his shoulder, and took leave. He 
offered us his hand, and said— 

“ ‘ When you come to Wittenberg, greet 
Dr. Hieronymus Schurf from me— 

“We said— 

“ ‘ Gladly would we do that, but what 
shall we call you, that he may understand 
the greeting ?’ 

“ He said— 

“ ‘ Say nothing more than, He who is 
coming, sends you greeting. He will at 
once understand the words.’ 

“Thus he took leave of us, and retired to 
rest. 

“Afterwards the merchants returned into 
the room, and desired the host to bring them 
more to drink, whilst they had much to talk 
with him as to who his guest really was. 

“ The host confessed he took him to be 
Luther; whereupon they were soon per¬ 
suaded, and regretted that they had spoken 
so unbecomingly before him, and said they 
would rise early on the following morning, 
before he rode off, and beg him not to be 
angry with them, or think evil of them, 
since they had not known who he was. 

“This happened as they wished, and 
they found him the next morning in the 
stable. 

“ But Martin said, ‘You said last night 


at supper you would gladly give ten florins 
to confess to Luther. When j'ou confess 
yourselves to him you will know whether I 
am Martin Luther or not.’ 

Further than this he did not declare who 
he was, but soon afterwards mounted and 
rode off to Wittenberg. 

“On the same day he came to Naumburg, 
and as we entered the village (it lies under 
a mountain, and I think the mountain is 
called Orlamunde, and the village Nasshau- 
sen), a stream was flowing through it which 
was swollen by the rain of the previous 
day, and had carried away part of the 
bridge, so that no one could ride over it. 
In the same village we lodged for the 
night, and it happened that we again found 
in the inn the two merchants, so they, for 
Luther’s sake, insisted on making us their 
guests at this inn. 

“On the Saturday after, the day before 
the first Sunday in Lent, we went to Dr. 
Hieronymus Schurf to deliver our letters of 
introduction. When we were called into 
the room, lo and behold! there we found 
the trooper Martin as before at Jena, and 
with him were Philip Melancthon, Justus 
Jonas, Nicolaus Amsdorf, and Dr. Augustin 
Schurf, who were relating to him what had 
happened at Wittenberg during his absence. 
He greeted us, and laughing pointed with 
his finger and said, ‘This is Philip Melanc¬ 
thon, of whom 1 spoke to you.’” 

I have copied this to begin to improve my¬ 
self, that I may be a better companion for 
Conrad, and also because in after years I 
think we shall prize anything which shows 
how our Martin Luther won the hearts of 
strangers, and how, when returning to Wit¬ 
tenberg an excommunicated and outlawed 
man, with the care of the evangelical doc¬ 
trine on him, he had a heart at leisure for 
little acts of kindness and words of faithful 
counsel. 

What a blessing it is for me, who can 
understand nothing of the “Theologia 
Teutsch” even in German, and never could 
have learned Latin like Eva, that Dr. Lu¬ 
ther’s sermons are so plain to me, great, and 
learned as he is. Chriemhild and 1 always 
understood them, and although we never 
could talk much to others, at night in our 
bedroom we used to speak to each other 
about them, and say how very simple re¬ 
ligion seemed when he spoke of it, just to 
believe in our blessed Lord Jesus Christ, 
who died for our sins, and to love him 






164 


THE SCUONBERG-COTTA FAMILY. 


and to do all we can to make every one 
around us happier and better. What a 
blessing for people who are not clever, like 
Chriemhild and me, to have been born in 
days when we are taught that religion is 
faith and love, instead of all those compli¬ 
cated rules and lofty supernatural virtues 
which people used to call religion. 

And yet they say faith, and love,' and 
humility, are more really hard than all the 
old penances and good works. 

But that must be, I think, to people who 
have never heard, as we have from Dr. Lu¬ 
ther, so much about God to make us love 
him; or to people who have more to be 
proud of than Chriemhild and I, and so 
find it more difficult to think of themselves. 

EVA’S STORY. 

Wittenberg, October , 1522. 

How strange it seemed at first to be mov¬ 
ing freely about in the world once more, 
and to come back to the old home of Wit¬ 
tenberg! Veiy strange to find the places so 
little changed, and the people so much. 
The little room where Else and I used to 
sleep, with scarcely an article of furniture 
altered, except thatThekla’s books are there 
instead of Else’s wooden crucifix; and the 
same view over the little garden, with its 
pear-tree full of white blossoms, to the 
Elbe with its bordering oaks and willows, 
all there in their freshest delicate early 
green, while the undulations of the level 
land faded in the soft blues to the horizon. 

But, unlike the convent, all the changes 
in the people seemed to have been wrought 
by the touch of life rather than by that 
of death. 

. In Else’s own home across the street, the 
ringing of those sweet childish voices, so 
new to me, and yet familiar with echoes 
of old tones and looks of our own well- 
remembered early days! And on Else her¬ 
self the change seemed only such as that 
which develops the soft tints of spring on 
the green of shadowing leaves. 

Christopher himself has grown from the 
self-assertion of boyhood into the strength 
and protecting kindness of manhood. Uncle 
Cotta’s blindness seems to dignify him and 
make him the central object of every one’s 
tender reverent care, while the visions 
grow bright in the darkness, and more 
placid on account of his having no respon¬ 
sibility as to fulfilling them. He seems to 


me a kind of hallowing presence in the 
family, calling out every one’s sympathy 
and kindness and pathetically reminding us 
by his loss of the preciousness of our com¬ 
mon mercies. 

On the grandmother’s heart the light is 
more like dawn than sunset, so fresh, and 
soft, and full of hope her old age seems. 
The marks of fretting, daily anxiety and 
care have been smoothed from dear Cotta’s 
face; and although a deep shadow rests 
there often when she thinks of Fritz, I feel 
sure sorrow is not now to her the shadow 
of a mountain of divine wrath, but the 
shadow of a cloud which brings blessing 
and hides light, which the Sun of love drew 
forth, and the Rainbow of promise conse¬ 
crates. 

Yet he has the place of the firstborn in 
her heart. With the others, though not 
forgotten, I think his place is partly filled— 
but never with her. Else’s life is very full. 
Atlantis never knew him as the elder ones 
did; and Thekla, dearly as she learned to 
love him during his little sojourn at Witten- , 
berg, has her heart filled with the hopes of 
her future, or at times overwhelmed with 
its fears. With all it almost seems he 
would have in some measure to make a 
place again, if he were to return. But 
with Aunt Cotta, the blank is as utterly a 
blank, and a sacred place kept free from all 
intrusion, as if it were a chamber of our I 
dead, kept jealously locked and untouched 
since the last day he stood living there. 
Yet he surely is not dead; I say so to 
myself and to her when she speaks of it, a 
thousand times. Why, then, does this hope¬ 
less feeling creep over me when I think of 
him ? It seems so impossible to believe he 
ever can be amongst us any more. If it 
would please God only to send us some 
little word! But since that letter from 
Priest Ruprecht Haller, not a syllable has - 
reached us. Two months since, Christo¬ 
pher went to this priest’s village in Fran¬ 
conia, and lingered some days in the neigh¬ 
borhood, making inquiries in every direc¬ 
tion around the monastery where he is. 
But he could hear nothing, save that in the 
autumn of last year, the little son of a 
neighboring knight, who was watching his 
mother’s geese on the outskirts of the forest 
near the convent, used to hear the sounds 
of a man’s voice singing from the window 
of the tower the convent prison is. The 
child used to linger near the spot to listen 







EVA'S STORY. 


165 


to the songs, which, he said, were so rich 
and deep—sacred, like church hymns, but 
more joyfnl than anything he ever heard at 
church. He thought they were Easter 
hymns; but since one evening in last Octo¬ 
ber he lias never heard them, although he 
has often listened. Nearly a year since 
now! 

Yet nothing can silence those resurrec¬ 
tion hymns in his heart! 

Aunt Cotta’s great comfort is the holy 
sacrament. Nothing, she says, lifts up her 
heart like that. Other symbols, or writ¬ 
ings, or sermons bring before her, she'says, 
some part of truth; but that the Holy Sup¬ 
per brings the Lord himself before her; not 
one truth about him, or another, but him¬ 
self ; not one act of his holy life alone, nor 
even his atoning death, but his very person, 
human and divine; himself living, dying, 
conquering death, freely bestowing life. 
She has learned that to attend that holy 
sacrament is not as she once thought to 
perform a good work, which always left 
her more depressed than before with the 
feeling how unworthily and coldly she had 
done it; but to look off from self to him 
who finished the good ivork of redemption 
for us. As Dr. Melanetbon says,— 

“ Just as looking at the cross is not the 
doing of a good work, but simply contem¬ 
plating a sign which recalls to us the death 
of Christ; 

“ Just as looking at the sun is not the 
doing of a good work, but simply contem¬ 
plating a sign which recalls to us Christ 
and his Gospel; 

“ So participating at the Lord’s supper is 
not the doing of a good work, but simply 
the making use of a sign which brings to 
mind the grace that has been bestowed on 
us by Christ.” 

‘•But here lies the difference; symbols 
discovered by man simply recall what they 
signify, whereas the signs given by God not 
only recall the things, but further assure 
the heart with respect to the will of God.” 

‘ As the sight of a cross does not justify, 

the mass does not justify. As the sight 
of cross is not a sacrifice, either for our 
sins or for the sins of others, so the mass is 
not * sacrifice.” 

r There is but one sacrifice, there is but 
one satisfaction—Jesus Christ. Beyond 
Aim there is nothing of the kind.” 

I have been trying constantly to find a 
refuge for the nine evangelical nuns I left 


at Nimptschen, but hitherto in vain. I do 
not, however, by any means despair. I 
have advised them now to write, them¬ 
selves, to Dr. Luther. 

October , 1522. 

The German New Testament is published 
at last. 

On September the 21st it appeared; and 
that day, happening to be Aunt Cotta’s 
birthday, when she came down among us 
in the morning, Gottfried Reuchenbach 
met her, and presented her with two large 
folio volumes in which it is printed, in the 
name of the whole family. 

Since then one volume always lies on a 
table in the general sitting-room, and one 
in the window of Aunt Cotta's bedroom. 

Often now she comes down in the morn¬ 
ing with a beaming face, and tells us of 
some verse she has discovered. Uncle 
Cotta calls it her diamond-mine, and says, 
“The little mother has found the El Do¬ 
rado after all!” 

“ One morning it was,— 

“ Cast all your care on him, for he careth 
for you,’’-and that lasted her many days. 

To-day it was,— 

“Tribulation worketh patience; and pa¬ 
tience experience; and experience, hope; 
and hope maketh not ashamed; because the 
love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by 
the Holy Ghost, which is given unto us.” 
“Eva,” she said, “That seems to me so 
simple. It seems to me to mean, that when 
sorrow comes, then the great thing we have 
to do is, to see that we do not lose hold of 
patience ; she seems linked to all the other 
graces, and to lead them naturally into the 
heart, hand in hand, one by one. Eva, 
dear child,” she added, “ is that what is 
meant ?” 

I said how often those words had cheered 
me, and how happy it is to think that all 
the while these graces illumining the dark¬ 
ness of the heart, the dark hours are pass¬ 
ing away, until all at once hope steals to 
casement and withdraws the shutters; and 
the light which has slowly been dawning 
all the time, streams into the heart, “the 
love of God shed abroad by the Holy 
Ghost.” 

“ But,” rejoined Aunt Cotta, “ we can¬ 
not ourselves bring in experience, or reach 
the hand of hope, or open the window to 
let in the light of love; we can only look 
up to God, keep firm hold of patience, and 
she will bring all the rest.” 






166 


THE SCEONBERG-COTTA FAMILY. 


“ And yet,” I said, “ peace comes before 
patience, peace with God through faith in 
him who was delivered for our offence. 
All these graces do not lead us up to God. 
We have access to him first, and in his 
presence we learn the rest.” 

Yes, indeed, the changes in the Witten¬ 
berg world since I left it, have been 
wrought by the hand of life and not by 
that of death, or time, which is his shadow. 
For have not the brightest been wrought by 
the touch of the Life himself? 

It is God, not time, that has mellowed 
our grandmother’s character; it is God and 
not time that lias smoothed the care-worn 
wrinkles from Aunt Cotta’s brow. 

It is life and not death that has all but 
emptied the Augustinian convent, sending 
the monks back to their places in the world, 
to serve God and proclaim his Gospel. 

It is the water of life that is flowing 
through home after some in the channel of 
Dr. Luther’s German Testament, and bring¬ 
ing forth fruits of love, and joy, and peace. 

And we know it is life and not death 
which is reigning in that lonely prison, 
wherein the child heard the resurrection 
hymns, and that is triumphing now in the 
heart offliim who sang them, wherever he 
may be l 

THEKLA’S STORY. 

October, 1522. 

Once more the letters come regularly 
from Flanders; and in most ways their tid¬ 
ings are joyful. Nowhere throughout the 
world, Bertrand writes, does the evangelical 
doctrine find such an eager reception as 
there. The people in the great free cities 
have been so long accustomed to judge for 
themselves, and to speak their mind freely. 
The Augustinian monks who studied at Wit¬ 
tenberg, took back the Gospel with them to 
Antwerp, and preached it openly in their 
church, which became so thronged with 
eager hearers, that numbers had to listen 
outside the doors. It is true, Bertrand says, 
that the Prior and one or two of the monks 
have been arrested, tried at Brussels, and 
silenced; but the rest continue undauntedly 
to preach as before, and the effect of the 
persecution has been only to deepen the in¬ 
terest of the citizens. 

The great new event which is occupying 
us all now however, is the publication of 
Dr. Luther’s New Testament, Cliriemhild 


writes that it is the greatest boon to her, be¬ 
cause being afraid to trust herself to say 
much, she simply reads, and the peasants 
*eem to understand that book better than 
anything she can say about it; or even, if at 
any time they come to anything which per¬ 
plexes them, they generally find that by 
simply reading on it grows quite clear. 
Also, she writes, Ulrich reads it every even¬ 
ing to all the servants, and it seems to bind 
the household together wonderfully. They 
feel that at last they have found something 
inestimably precious, which is yet no “priv¬ 
ilege ” of man or class, but the common 
property of all. 

In many families at Wittenberg the book 
is daily read, for there are few of those who 
can read at all who cannot afford a copy, 
since the price is but a florin and a half. 

New hymns also are beginning to spring 
up among us. We are no more living on the 
echo of old songs. A few days since a 
stranger from the north sang before Dr. 
Luther’s windows, at the Augustinian con¬ 
vent, a hymn beginning,— 

“Es ist das Heil uns kommen her. 

Dr. Luther desired that it might be sung 
again. It was a response from Prussia to 
the glad tidings which have gone forth far 
and wide through his words 1’ He said “he 
thanked God with a full heart.” 

The delight of having Eva among us 
once more is so great. Her presence seems 
to bring peace with it. It is not what she 
says or does, but what she is. It is more like 
the effect of music than anything else I 
know. A quiet seems to come over one’s 
i heart from merely being with her. No one 
| seems to fill so little space, or make so little 
noise in the world as Eva, when she is 
there; and yet when she is gone, it is as if 
the music and the lighthad passed from the 
place. Everything about her always seems 
so in tune. Her soft, quiet voice, her gentle, 
noiseless movements, her delicate features, 
the soft curve of her cheek, those deep lov¬ 
ing eyes, of which one never seems able to 
remember anything but that Eva herself 
looks through them into your heart. 

All so different from me, who can scarcely 
ever come into a room without upsetting 
something, or disarranging some person, and 
can never enter on a conversation without 
upsetting some one’s prejudices, or grating 
on some one’s feelings. 

It seems to me sometimes as if God did 
1 indeed lead Eva, as the Psalm says, by his 





THEKLA'S STORY. 


167 


eye; as if he had trained her to what she is 
by the direct teaching of his gracious voice, 
instead of by the rough training of circum¬ 
stances. And nevertheless, she never makes 
rne feel her hopelessly above me. The 
light is not like a star; which makes one 
feel “how peaceful it must be there, in 
these heights,” but brings little light upon 
our path. It is like a lowly sunbeam com¬ 
ing down among us, and making us warm 
and bright. 

She always makes me think of the verse 
about the saint who was translated silently 
to heaven, because he had “walked with 
God.” Yes, I am sure that is her secret. 

Only I have a malicious feeling that I 
should like to see her for once thoroughly 
tossed out of her calm, just to be quite sure 
it is God’s peace, and not some natural or 
fairy gift, or a stoical impassiveness from 
the “Theologia Teutsch.” Sometimes I 
fancy for an instant whether it is not a 
little too much with Eva, as if she were 
“translated” already; as if she had passed 
to the other side of the deepest earthly Joy 
and sorrow, at least as regards herself. Cer¬ 
tainly she has not as regards others. Her 
sympathy is indeed no condescending alms, 
flung from the other side of the flood, no 
pitying glance cast down on grief she feels, 
but could never share. Have I not seen 
her lip quiver when I spoke of the dangers 
around Bertrand, even when my voice was 
firm, and felt her tears on my face when 
she drew me to her heart? 

December 1522. 

That question at last is answered I I 
have seen Cousin Eva moved out of her 
calm, and feel at last, quite sure she is not 
“ translated ” yet. Yesterday evening we 
were all sitting in the family-room. Our 
grandmother was dozing by the stove. 
Eva and my mother were busy at the table, 
helping Atlantis in preparing the dresses 
for her wedding, which is to be early in next 
year. I was reading to my father from Dr. 
Melancthon’s new book, “ The Common 
Places,” which all learned people say is 
so much more elegant and beautifully 
written than Dr. Luther’s works, but which 
is to me like a composed book, and not 
like all Dr. Luther’s writings, a voice from 
the depths of a heart. I was feeling like 
my grandmother, a little sleepy, and,indeed, 
the whole atmosphere around us seemed 
drowsy and still, when our little maid, Lott- j 


ehen, opened the door with a frightened 
expression, and before she could say any¬ 
thing, a pale, tall man stood there. Only 
Eva and I were looking towards the door. 
I could not think who it was, until a low 
startled voice exclaim-ed “ Fritz,” and look- 
tng around at Eva, I saw she had fainted. 

In another instant he was kneeling beside 
her, lavishing every tender name on her, 
while my mother stood on the other side, 
holding the unconscious form in her arms, 
and sobbing out Fritz’s name. 

Our dear father stood up, asking bewil¬ 
dered questions—our grandmother awoke, 
and rubbing her eyes, surveyed the whole 
group with a puzzled expression, murmur¬ 
ing,— 

“Is it a dream?” Or are the Zwickau 
prophets right after all, and is it the res¬ 
urrection ?” 

But no one seemed to remember that tears 
and endearing words and bewildered ex¬ 
clamations were not likely to restore any 
one from a fainting fit, until to my great 
satisfaction our good motherly Else appeared 
at the door, saying,“What is it?” Lottchen 
ran over to tell me she thought there were 
thieves.” 

Then comprehending everything at a 
glance, she dipped a handkerchief in water, 
and bathed Eva’s brow, and fanned her 
with it until in a few minutes she awoke 
with a short sobbing breath, and in a little 
while her eyes opened and as they rested 
on Fritz, a look of the most perfect rest 
came over her face, she placed her other 
hand on the one he held already, and closed 
her eyes again. I saw great tears falling 
under the closed eyelids. Then looking up 
again and seeing my mother bending over 
her, she drew down her hand and laid it on 
Fritz’s, and we left those three alone to¬ 
gether. 

When we were all safely in the next 
room, we all by one impulse began to weep. 
I sobbed,— 

*‘ He looks so dreadfully ill. I think they 
have all but murdered him.” And Else 
said,— 

“ She has exactly the same look on her 
face that came over it when she was recover¬ 
ing from the plague, and he stood motionless 
beside her, with that rigid, hopeless tran¬ 
quillity on his face, just before he left to be 
a monk. What will happen next?” 

And my grandmother said, in a feeble, 
broken voice,— 





168 


TEE SGHONBERG-COTTA FAMILY. 


“He looks just as your grandfather did 
when he took leave of me in prison. In¬ 
deed, sometimes I am quite confused in 
mind. It seems as if things were coming 
over again. 1 can hardly make out whether 
it is a dream, or a ghost, or a resurrection.” 

Our father only did not join in our tears, 
He said what was very much wiser. 

“ Children, the greatest joy our house 
has known since Fritz left has come to 
it to-day. Let us give God thanks.” And 
we all stood around him while he took the 
little velvet cap from his bald head and 
thanked God, while we all wept out our 
Amen. After that we grew calmer; the 
overwhelming tumult of feeling in which 
we could scarcely tell joy from sorrow, 
passed, and we began to understand it was 
indeed a great joy which had been given to 
us. 

Then we heard a little stir in the house, 
and my mother summoned us back; but we 
found her alone with Fritz, and would insist 
on his submitting to an unlimited amount 
of family caresses and welcomes. 

“Come, Fritz, and assure our grand¬ 
mother that you are alive, and that you have 
never been dead,” said Else. And then her 
eyes filled with tears, she added, “ What 
you must have suffered! If I had not 
remembered you before you received the 
tonsure, 1 should scarcely have known you 
now with your dark, long beard and your 
white, thin face.” 

“ Yes,” observed Atlantis in the deliberate 
way in which she usually announces her 
discoveries, “ no doubt this is the reason 
why Eva recognized Fritz before Thekla did, 
Although they were both facing the door, 
and must have seen him at the same time. 
She remembered him before he received the 
tonsure.” 

We all smiled a little at Atlantis’ dis¬ 
covery, whereupon she looked up with a 
bewildered expression, and said, “Do you 
think, then, she did not recognize him? I 
did not think of that. Probably, then, she 
took him for a thief, like Lottchen!” 

Fritz was deep in conversation with our 
mother, and was not heeding us, but Else 
laughed softly as she patted Atlantis’ hand, 
and said,— 

“ Conrad Winkelried must have expressed 
himself very plainly, sister, before you 
understood him.” 

“ He did, sister Else,” replied Atlantis, 


gravely. “But what has that to do with 
Eva ?” 

When I went up to our room, Eva’s and 
mine, I found her kneeling by the bed. In 
a few minutes she rose, and clasping me in 
her arms, she said,— 

“God is very good, Thekla. I have be¬ 
lieved that so long, but never half enough 
until to-night.” 

I saw that she had been weeping, but the 
old calm had come back to her face, only 
with a little more sunshine on it. 

Then, as if she feared to be forgetting 
others in her own happiness, she took my 
hand, and said,— 

“Dear Thekla, He is leading us all through 
all the dark days to the morning. We must 
never distrust him any more. 

And without saying another word we re¬ 
tired to rest. In the morning when I woke 
Eva was sitting beside me with a lamp on 
the table, and the large Latin Bible open 
before her. I watched her face for some 
time. It looked so pure, and good, and 
happy, with that expression on it which al¬ 
ways helped me to understand the meaning 
of the words, “ child of God,” “ little chil¬ 
dren,” as Dr. Melancthon says our Lord A 
called his disciples just before lie left them. 
There was so much of the unclouded trust- '] 
fulness of the “child” in it, and yet so 
much of the peace and depth which are of 
God. 

After looking at her a little while she 
closed the Bible, and began to alter a dress 
of mine which she had promised to prepare | 
for Christmas. As she was sewing, she 
hummed softly, as she was accustomed, 
some>strainsof old church music. At length 
I said,— 

“ Eva, how old were you when Fritz be¬ 
came a monk ?” 

“Sixteen,” she said softly; “he went 
away just after the plague.” 

“Then you have been separated twelve 
long years,” I said. “God, then, sometimes 
exercises patience a long while.” 

“ It does not seem long now,” she said; 

•• we both believed we were separated by 
God, and separated for ever on earth.” : 

“Poor Eva,” I said; “and this was the 
sorrow which helped to make you so good.” . 

“ I did not know it had been so great a 
sorrow, Thekla,” she said with a quivering 
voice, “ until last night.” 

“ Then you had loved each other all that i 
time,” I said, half to myself. 





FRITZ'S STORY. 


.169 


“ 1 suppose so,” she said in a low voice. 
u But I never knew till yesterday how 
much.” 

After a short silence she began again, 
with a smile. 

“Thekla, he thinks me unchanged during 
all those years, me, the matron of the novi¬ 
ces ! But, oh, how he is changed! What 
a life-time of suffering on his face ! How 
they must have made him suffer !” 

“ God gives it to you as your life-work to 
restore and help him,” I said. “ O Eva, it 
must be the best woman’s lot in the world 
to bind up for the dearest on earth the 
wounds which men have inflicted because 
he loved God best. It must be joy unutter¬ 
able to receive back from God’s own hands a 
love you have both so dearly proved you 
were ready to sacrifice for him.” 

“Your mother thinks so too,” she said. 
“She said last night the vows which would 
bind us together would be holier than any 
ever uttered by saint or hermit.” 

“ Did our mother say that?” I asked. 

“Yes,” replied Eva. “And she said she 
was sure Dr. Luther would think so also.” 

FRITZ’S'STORY. 

December 31, 1522. 

We are betrothed. Solemnly in the 
presence of our family and friends Eva has 
promised to be my wife; and in a few weeks 
we are to be married. Our home (at all 
events, at first) is to be in the Thuringen 
forest, in the parsonage belonging to Ulrich 
von Gersdorf’s castle. The old priest is too 
aged to do anything. Chriemhild has set 
her heart on having us to reform the peas¬ 
antry and they all believe the quiet and the 
pure air of the forest will restore my health, 
which bas been rather shattered by all 1 
have gone through during these last months, 
although not as much as they think. I feel 
strong enough for anything already. What 
I have lost during all those years in being 
separated from her! How poor and one¬ 
sided my life has been ! How strong the 
rest her presence gives me, makes me to do 
whatever work God may give me ! 

Amazing blasphemy on God to assert 
that the order in which he has founded hu¬ 
man life is disorder, that the love which 
the Son of God compares to the relation 
between himself and his Church sullies or 
lowers the heart. 

Have these years then been lost? Have 


I wandered away away wilful and deluded 
from the lot of blessing God had appointed 
me, since that terrible time of the plague, 
at Eisenach? Have all these been wasted 
years ? Has all the suffering been fruitless, 
unnecessary pain? And, after all, do I 
return with precious time lost and strength 
diminished just to the point I might have 
reached so long ago ? 

For Eva I am certain this is not so; every 
step of her way, the loving hand has led 
her. Did not the convent through her be¬ 
come a home or a way to the Eternal Home 
to many ? But for -me ? No, for me also 
the years have brought more than they 
have taken away. Those who are to help 
the perplexed and toiling men of their 
time, must first go down into the convicts 
of their time. Is it not this which makes 
even Martin Luther the teacher of our na¬ 
tion ? Is it not this which qualifies weak 
and sinful men to be preachers of the Gos¬ 
pel instead of angels from heaven ? 

The holy angels sang on their heavenly 
heights the glad tidings of great joy, but 
the shepherds, and fishermen, and the pub¬ 
lican spoke it in the homes of men! The 
angel who liberated the apostles from 
prison said, as if spontaneously, from the 
fulness of his heart, “Go speak to the 
people the words of this life." But the 
trembling lips of Peter who had denied, 
and Thomas who had doubted, and John 
who had misunderstood, were to speak the 
life-giving words to men, denying, doubt¬ 
ing, misconceiving men, to tell what they 
knew, and how the Saviour could forgive. 

The voice that had been arrested in cow¬ 
ardly curses by the look of divine pardon¬ 
ing love, had a tone in it the Archangel 
Michael’s could never have ! 

And when the Pharisees, hardest of all, 
were to be reached, God took a Pharisee of 
the Pharisees, a blasphemer, a persecutor, 
one who could say, “I might also have 
confidence in the flesh, I persecuted the 
Church of God.” 

Was David’s secret contest in vain, when 
slaying the lion and the bear, to defend 
those few sheep in the wilderness, he 
proved the weapons with which he slew 
Goliath and rescued the hosts of Israel? 
Were Martin Luther’s years in the convent 
at Erfurt lost? Or have they not been the 
school-days of his life, the armory where 
his weapons were forged, the gymnasium 




170 


THE SC HO NBERG-CO TTA FAMILY , 


in which his eye and hand were trained for 
the battle-field ? 

He has seen the monasteries from within; 
he has felt the monastic life from within. 
He can say of all these external rules, “ 1 
have proved them, and found them power¬ 
less to sanctify the heart.” It is this which 
gives the irresistible power to his speaking 
and writing. It is this which by God’s 
grace enables him to translate the Epistles 
of St. Paul the Pharisee and Apostle as he 
has done. The truths had been translated 
by the Holy Spirit into the language of his 
experience and graven on his heart long 
before; so that in rendering the Greek into 
German he also testified of things he had 
seen, and the Bible from his pen reads as 
if it had been originally written in German, 
for the German people. 

To me also in my measure these years 
have not been time lost. There are many 
truths that one only learns in their fulness 
by proving the bitter bondage of the errors 
they contradict. 

Perhaps also we shall help each other 
and others around us better for having 
been thus trained apart. I used to dream 
of the joy of leading her into life. But 
now God gives her back to me enriched 
with all those years of separate experience, 
not as the Eva of childhood, when 1 saw 
her last, but ripened to perfect womanhood; 
not merely to reflect my thoughts, but to 
blend the fulness of her life with mine. 

EYA S STORY. 

Wittenberg, January , 1525. 

How little idea I had how the thought of 
Fritz was interwoven with all my life! He 
says he knew only too well how the thought 
of me was bound up with every hope and 
affection of his ? 

But he contended against it long. He said 
that conflict was far more agonizing than 
all he suffered in the prison since. For 
many years he thought it sin to think of me. 
I never thought. it sin to think of him. I 
was sure it was not, whatever my confessor 
might say. Because I had always thanked 
God more than for anything else in the 
world, for all he had been to me, and had 
taught me, and I felt so sure what I could 
thank God for, could not be wrong. 

But now it is duty to love him best. Of 
that I am quite sure. And certainly it is 
not difficult. My only fear is that he will 


be disappointed in me when he learns just 
what I am, day by day, with all the halo of 
distance gone. And yet I am not really 
afraid. Love weaves better glories than 
the mists of distance. And we do not ex¬ 
pect miracles from each other, or that 
life is to be Paradise. Only the unutterable 
comfort of being side by side in every con¬ 
flict, trial, joy, and supporting each other! 
If I can say “only” of that! For I do 
believe our help will be mutual. For 
weaker and less wise as I am than he is, 
with a range of thought and experience so 
much narrower, and a force of purpose so 
much feebler, I feel I have a kind of strength 
which may in some way, at some times even 
help Fritz. And it is this which makes me 
see the good of these separated years, in 
which otherwise I might have lost so much. 
With him the whole world seems so much 
larger and higher to me, and yet during 
these years, I do feel Gocl has taught me 
something, and it is a happiness to have a 
little more to bring him than I could have 
had in my early girlhood. 

It was for my sake, then, he made that 
vow of leaving us for ever! 

And Aunt Cotta is so happy. On that 
evening when he returned, and we three 
were left alone, she said, after a few min¬ 
utes’ silence— 

“Children, let us all kneel down,and thank 
God that he has given me the desire of my 
heart.” 

And afterwards she told us what she had al¬ 
ways wished and planned for Fritz and me, 
and how she had thought his abandoning of 
the world a judgment for her sins; but how 
she was persuaded now that the curse borne 
for us was something infinitely more than 
anything she could have endured, and that 
it had been all borne, and nailed to the 
bitter cross, and rent and blotted out for 
ever. And now, she said, she felt as if the 
last shred of evil were gone, and her life 
were beginning again in us—to be blessed 
and a blessing beyond her utmost dreams. 

Fritz does not like to speak much of what 
he suffered in the prison of that Dominican 
convent, and least of all to me; because, 
although I repeat to myself, “It is over— 
over for ever!”—whenever I think of his 
having been on the dreadful rack, it all 
seems present again. 

He was on the point of escaping the very 
night they came and led him in for exami¬ 
nation in the torture-chamber. And after 





ELBE'S STORY. 


171 


* 


that, they carried him back to prison, and 
seem to have left him to die there. For two 
days they sent him no food; but then the 
young monk who had first spoken to him, 
and induced him to come to the convent, 
managed to steal to him almost every day 
with food and water, and loving words of 
sympathy, until his strength revived a little, 
and they escape^ together through the 
epening he had dug in the wall before the 
examination. But their escape was soon 
discovered, and they had to hide in the caves 
and recesses of the forest for many weeks 
before they could strike across the country, 
and find their way to Wittenberg at last. 

But it is over now. And yet not over. He 
who suffered will never forget the suffering 
faithfully borne for him. And the prison 
at the Dominican convent will be a fonntain 
of strength for his preaching among the 
peasants in the Thuringen forest. He will 
be able to say, “God can sustain in all 
trials. He will not suffer you to be tempted 
above that you are able to bear. I know it, 
for I have proved it." And I think that 
will help him better to translate the Bible to 
the hearts of the poor, than even the Greek 
and Hebrew he learned at Rome and 
Tubingen. 

ELSE’S STORY. 

All our little world is in such a tumult of 
thankfulness and joy at present, that 1 think 
I am the only sober person left in it. 

The dear mother hovers around her two 
lost ones with quiet murmurs of content, 
like a dove around her nest, and is as ab¬ 
sorbed as if she were marrying her first 
daughter, or were a bride herself, instead of 
being the established and honored grand¬ 
mother that she is. Chriemhild and I might 
find it difficult not to be envious, if we had 
not our own private consolations at home. 

Eva and Fritz are certainly far more rea¬ 
sonable, and instead of regarding the whole 
world as centering in them, like our dear 
mother, appear to consider themselves made 
to serve the whole world, which is more 
Christian-like, but must also have its limits. 
I cannot but feel it a great blessing for them 
that they have Chriemhild and Ulrich, and 
more especially Gottfried and me, to look 
aft^* their temporal affairs. 

For instance, house linen, Eva, of course 
has not a piece; and as to her bridal attire, 
I believe she would be content to be married 


in a nun’s robe, or in the peasant’s dress she 
escaped from Nimptscheu in. However, I 
have stores which, as Gretcheu is not likely 
to require them just yet, will, no doubt 
answer the purpose. Gretchen is not more 
than eight, but I always think it well to be 
beforehand; and my maidens had already 
a stock of linen enough to stock several 
chests for her, which, under the circumstan¬ 
ces, seems quite a special providence. 

Gottfried insists upon choosing her wed¬ 
ding dress. And my mother believes her 
own ancestral jewelled head-dress with the 
pearls (which once in our poverty we nearly 
sold to a merchant at Eisenach) has been 
especially preserved for Eva. 

It is well that Atlantis, who is to be mar¬ 
ried on the same day, is the meekest and 
most unselfish of brides, and that her mar¬ 
riage outfit is already all but arranged. 

Chriemhild and Ulrich have persuaded 
the old knight to rebuild the parsonage; and 
she writes what a delight it is to watch it 
rising among the cottages in the village, and 
think of the fountain of blessing that house 
will be to all. 

Our grandmother insists on working with 
her dear feeble hands, on Eva’s wedding 
stores, and has ransacked her scanty rem¬ 
nants of former splendor, and brought out 
many a quaint old jewel from the ancient 
Schonberg treasures. 

Christopher is secretly preparing them a 
library of all Dr. Luther’s and Dr. Melanc- 
thon’s books, beautifully bound, and I do 
not know how many learned books besides. 

And the melancholy has all passed from 
Fritz’s face, or only remains as the depth 
of a river to bring out the sparkle of its 
ripples. 

The strain seems gone from Eva’s heart 
and his. They both seem for the firs^ time 
all they were meant to be. 

Just now, however, another event is 
almost equally filling our grandmother’s 
heart. 

A few days since, Christopher brought 
in two foreigners to introduce to us. When 
she saw them, her work dropped from her 
hands, and half rising to meet them, she 
said some words in a language strange to all 
of us. 

The countenance of the strangers bright¬ 
ened as she spoke, and they replied in the 
same language. 

After a few minutes’ conversation, our 
grandmother turned to us, and said,— 







172 TEE SCEONBERG-COTTA FAMILY. 


“They are Bohemians—they are Hus¬ 
sites. They know my husband’s name. 
The truth lie died for is still living in my 
country.” 

The rush of old associations was too much 
for her. Her lips quivered, the tears fell 
slowly over her cheeks, and she could not 
say another word. 

Tlie strangers consented to remain under 
my father’s roof for the night, and told us 
the errand which brought them to Witten¬ 
berg. 

From generation to generation, since 
John Huss was martyred, they said, the 
truth he taught had been preserved in Bo¬ 
hemia, always at the risk, and often at the 
cost of life. Sometimes it had perplexed 
them much that nowhere in the world be¬ 
side could they hear of those who believed 
the same truth. Could it be possible that 
the truth of God was banished to their 
mountain fastnesses? Like Elijah of old, 
they felt disposed to cry in their wilder¬ 
ness, “ I, only I, am left.” 

“ But they could not have been right to 
think thus,” said my mother, who never 
liked the old religion to be too much re¬ 
proached. “ God has always had his own 
who have loved him, in the darkest days. 
From how many convent cells have pious 
hearts looked up to him. It requires great 
teaching of the Holy Spirit and many bat¬ 
tles to make a. Luther; but, I think, it re¬ 
requires only to touch the hem of Christ’s 
garment to make a Christian.” 

“ Yes,” said Gottfried, opening our be¬ 
loved comments on the Galatians, “ what 
Dr. Luther said is true indeed, ‘ Some there 
were in the olden time whom God called by 
the text of the Gospel and by baptism. 
These walked in simplicity and humbleness 
of l^art, thinking the monks and friars, 
and such only as were anointed by the 
bishops, to be religious and holy, and them¬ 
selves to be profane and secular, and not 
worthy to be compared to them. Where¬ 
fore, they feeling in themselves no good 
works to set against the wrath and judg¬ 
ment of God, did fly to the death and pas¬ 
sion of Christ, and were saved in this sim¬ 
plicity.’ ” 

“ No doubt it was so,” said the Bohemian 
deputies. “ But all this was hidden from 
the eye of man. Twice our fathers sent 
Secret messengers through the length and 
breadth of Christendom, to see if they 
eould find any that did understand, that 


did seek after God, and everywhere they 
found carelessness, superstition, darkness, 
no response.” 

“ Ah,” said my mother, “ that is a 
search only the eye of God can make. 
Yet, doubtless, the days were dark.” 

“They came back without having met 
with any response,” continued the strangers, 
‘ ‘ and again our fathers had to toil and 
suffer on alone. And now the sounds of life 
have reached us in our mountain solitudes 
from all parts of the world; and we have 
come to Wittenberg to hear the voice which 
awoke them first, and to claim brotherhood 
with the evangelical Christians here. Dr. 
Luther has welcomed us, and we return to 
our mountains to tell our people that the 
morning has dawned on the world at last.” 

The evening passed in happy intercourse, 
and before "we separated, Christopher 
brought his lute, and we all sang together 
the hymn of John Huss, which Dr. Luther 
has published among his own :— 

“ Jesus Christus nostra salus,” 

and afterwards Luther’s own glorious hymn 
in German:— 

“ Nun freut euch lieben Christen gemein.” 

Dear Christian people, all rejoice, 

Each soul with joy upspringing; 

Pour forth one song with heart and voice, 
With love and gladness singing. 

Give thanks to God, our Lord, above— 
Thanks for his miracle of love; 

Dearly he hath redeemed us. 

The devil’s captive bound I lay, 

Lay in death’s chains forlorn; 

My sins distressed me night and day— 

The sin within me born; 

I could not do the thing I would, 

In all my life was nothing good, 

Sin had possessed me wholly. 


Mygood works could no comfort shed. 
Worthless must they be rated; 

My free will to all good was dead. 

And God’s just judgment hated. 

Me of all hope my sins bereft; 

Nothing but death to me was left, 

And death was hell’s dark portal. 

Then God saw with deep pity moved 
My grief that knew no measure 
Pitying he saw, and freely love,d,— 

To save me was his pleasure/ 

The Father’s heart to me was stirred, 
He saved me with no sovereign word, 
His very best it cost him. 








ELBE'S STORY. 


173 


He spoke to his beloved Son 
With infinite compassion, 

Go hence, my heart's most precious crown, 
Be to the lost salvation; 

Death, his relentless tyrant slay, 

And bear him from his sins away, 

With thee to live forever.” 


Willing the Son took that behest, 

Born of a maiden mother, 

To his own earth he came a guest, 

And made himself my brother. 

All secretly he went his way, 

Veiled in my mortal flesh he lay, 

And thus the foe he vanquished. 

He sai to me, “ Cling close to me. 

Thy sorrows now are ending; 

Freely I gave myself for thee, 

Thy life with mine defending; 

For I am thine, and thou art mine, 

And where I ain there thou shalt shine, 

The foe shall never reach us. 

‘True, he will shed my heart’s life blood, 
And torture me to death 
All this l suffer for thy good. 

This hold with firmest faith. 

Death, dieth through my life divine; 

I sinless bear those sins of thine, 

And so shalt thou be rescued. 

“ I rise again to heaven from hence, 

High to my Father soaring, 

Thy Master there to be, and thence, 

My Spirit on thee pouring; 

In every grief to comfort thee, 

And teach thee more and more of me, 

Into all truth still guiding. 

What I have done and taught on earth 
Do thou, and teach, none dreading; 

That so God’s kingdom may go forth, 

And his high praise be spreading; 

And guard thee from the words of men, 

Lest the great joy be lost again; 

Thus my last charge I leave thee. 1 ’ 

Afterwards, at our mother’s especial de¬ 
sire, Eva and Fritz sang a Latin resurrec¬ 
tion hymn from the olden time.* 

v '! . : 

The renewal of the world 
Countless new joys bringeth forth; 

Christ arising;, all things rise— 

Rise with him from earth. 

All the creatures feel their Lord- 
Feel his festal light outpoured. 


* Mundi renovatio 
Nova parit gaudia, 
Resurgente Domino 
Conresurgunt omnia; 
Elementa serviunt, 

Et auctoris sentiunt, 
Quanta sint solemnia, 
etc. etc. etc. 


Fire springs up with motion free, 

Breezes wake up soft and warm, 

Water flows abundantly, 

Earth remaineth firm. 

All things light now sky-ward soar, 

Solid things are rooted more: 

All things are made new. 

Ocean waves, grown tranquil, lie 
Smiling ’neath the heavens serene; 

All the air breathes light and fresh; 

Our valley groweth green. 

Verdure clothes the arid plain, 

, Frozen waters gush again 
At the touch of spring. 

For the frost of death is melted, 

The prince of this world lieth low; 

And his empire strong among us, 

All is broken now. 

Grasping Him in whom alone 

He could nothing claim or own, 

His domain he lost. 

Paradise is now regained, 

Life has vanquished death; 

And the joys he long had lost, 

Man recovereth. 

The cherubim at God’s own word 

Turn aside the flaming sword 1 

The long-lost blessing is restored, 

The closed way opened free. * 

The next morning the strangers left us; 
but all the clay our grandmother sat silent 
and tranquil, with her hands clasped, in an 
inactivity very unusual with her. In the 
evening, when we had assembled again— 
as we all do now every day in the old 
house—she said quietly, “ Children, sing to 
me the ‘ Nunc Dimittis.’ God has fulfilled 
every desire of my heart; and, if he willed 
it, I should like to depart in peace to them, 
my dead. For I know they live unto him.” 

Afterwards, we fell into conversation 
about the past. It was the eve of the wed¬ 
ding-day of Eva and Fritz, and Atlantis 
and Conrad. And we, a family united in 
one faith, naturally spoke together of the 
various ways in which God had led us to 
the one end. 

The old days rose up before me, when 
the ideal of holiness had towered above 
my life, grim and stony, like the for¬ 
tress of the Wartburg (in which my patron¬ 
ess had lived, rbovethe streets of Eisenach; 
and when even Christ the Lord seemed 
to me, as Dr. Luther says, “a law-maker 
giving more strait and lieavj" commands 
than Moses himself”—an irrevocable, un¬ 
approachable Judge, enthroned far up in 


The translation only is given above. 


* Adam of St. Victor, twelfth century. 







m 


TEE SCHONBERG-COTTA FAMILY. 


the cold spaces of tlie sky; and heaven like 
a convent, with very high walls, peopled 
by nuns rigid as Aunt Agnes. And then 
the change which came over all my heart 
when I learned, through Dr. Luther’s teach¬ 
ing, that God is love—is our Father ; that 
Christ is the Saviour, who gave himself for 
our sins, and loved us better than life; that 
heaven is our Father’s house; that holiness 
is simply loving God—who is so good, and 
who has so loved us, and, loving one 
another, that the service we have to render 
is simply to give thanks and to do good;— 
when, as Dr. Luther said,that word “our” 
was written deeply in my heart—that for 
our sins He died—for mine,—that for all, 
for us, for me, He gave himself. 

And then Fritz told us how he had toiled 
and tormented himself to reconcile God to 
him, until he found, through Dr. Luther’s 
teaching, that our sins have been borne 
away by the Lamb of God—the sacrifice 
not of man’s gift, but of Gods; “that in 
that - one person, Jesus Christ, we had for¬ 
giveness of sins and eternal life;” that God 
is to us as the father to the prodigal son— 
entreating us to be reconciled to him. And 
he told us also, how he had longed for a 
priest, who could know infallibly all his 
heart, and secure him from the deceitful- 
ness and imperfectness of his own. confes¬ 
sions, and assure him that, knowing all his 
sin to its depths, with all its aggravations, 
yet pronounced him absolved. And at last 
lie had found that Priest, penetrating to the 
depths of his heart, tracing every act to its 
motive, every motive to its source, and yet 
pronouncing him absolved, freely, fully, at 
once—imposing no penance, but simply 
desiring a life of thanksgiving in return. 
“And this Priest,” he added, “ is with me 
always; I make my confession to him every 
evening, or oftener, If I need it; and 
as often as I confess, He absolves, and 
bids me be of good courage—go in peace, 
and sin no more. But lie is not on 
earth. He dwells in the holy of holies, 
which nevermore is empty, like the solitary 
sanctuary of the old temple on all days in 
the year but one. He ever liveth to make 
intercession for us !” 

Then we spoke together of the two great 
facts Dr. Luther had unveiled to us from 
the Holy Scriptures, that there is one sacri¬ 
fice of atonement, the spotless Lamb of God, 
who gave himself once for our sins; and 
that there is but one priestly Mediator, the 


Son of man and Son of God; that, in conse¬ 
quence of this, all Christians are a holy 
priesthood to offer up spiritual sacrifices; 
and the feeblest has his offering, which, 
through Jesus Christ, God delights to ac¬ 
cept, having first accepted the sinner himself 
in the Beloved. 

Our mother spoke to us, in a few words, 
of the dreadful thoughts she had of God— 
picturing him rather as the lightning than 
the light; of the curse which she feared 
was lowering like a thunder cloud over her 
life, until Dr, Luther began to show her 
that the curse has been borne for us by 
Him who was made a curse for us, and re¬ 
moved for ever from all who trust in him. 
“And then,” she said, “ the Holy Supper 
taught me the rest. He bore for us the 
cross; he spreads for us the feast. We 
have, indeed, the cross to bear, but never 
more the curse; the cross from man, temp¬ 
tation from the devil, but from God nothing 
but blessing.” 

But Eva said she could not remember the 
time when she did not think God good and 
kind beyond all. There were many other 
things in religion which perplexed her; but 
this had always seemed clear, that God so 
loved the world, he gave his Son. And she 
had always hoped that all the rest would be 
clear one day in the light of that love. The 
joy which Dr. Luther’s writings had brought 
her was, she thought, like seeing the stains 
cleared away from some beautiful painting, 
whose beauty she had known but not fully 
seen—or like having a misunderstanding 
explained about a dear friend. She had 
always wondered about the hard penances 
to appease One who loved so much, and the 
many mediators to approach him; and it 
had been an inexpressible delight to find 
that these were all a mistake, and that ac¬ 
cess to God was indeed open—that the love 
and the sin, and life and death, had met on 
the cross, and the sin had been blotted out, 
and death swallowed up of life. 

In such discourse we passed the eve of 
the wedding-day. 

And now the day has vanished like a 
bright vision; our little gentle loving Atlan¬ 
tis has gone with her husband to their dis¬ 
tant home, the bridal crowns are laid aside, 
and Eva and Fritz in their sober every-day 
dress, but with the crown of unfading joy 
in their hearts, have gone together to their 
lowly work in the forest, to make one more 
of those hallowed pastor’s homes which are 






EVA'S STORY . 


175 


springing up now in the villages of our 
land. 

But Gretchen’s linen-chest is likely to be 
long before it can be stored again. We 
have just received tidings of the escape of 
Eva’s friends, the nine nuns of Niinptschen 
from the convent, at last! They wrote to 
Dr. Luther who interested himself much in 
seeking asylums for them. And now Master 
Leonard Koppe of Torgau has brought them 
safely to Wittenberg concealed in his beer 
wagon. They say one of the nuns in their 
; haste left her slipper behind. They are all 
to be received into various homes, and Gott¬ 
fried and I are to have the care of Catherine 
von Bora, the most determined and courag¬ 
eous, it is said, of all, from whose cell they 
| affected their escape. 

I have been busy preparing the guest- 
j chamber for her, strewing lavender on the 
linen, and trying to make it home-like for 
the young maiden who is banished for 
Christ’s sake from her old home. 

I think it must bring blessings to any 
home to have such guests. 

June , 1523. 

Our guest, the noble maiden Catherine 
von Bora, has arrived. Grave and reserved 
[ she seems to be, although Eva spoke of her 
; as very cheerful, and light as well as firm of 
heart. I feel a little afraid of her. Her 
1 carriage has a kind of majesty about if 
which makes me offer her more deference 
than sympathy. Her eyes are dark and 
flashing, and her forehead is high and 
calm. 

This is not so remarkable to me who was 
always easily appalled by dignified persons; 
but even Dr. Luther, it seems to me, is 
\ somewhat awed by this young maiden. He 
thinks her rather haughty and reserved. I 
am not sure whether it is pride or a certain 
maidenly dignity. 

I am afraid I have too much of the homely 
burgher Cotta nature to be quite at ease 
with her. 

Our grandmother would doubtless have 
! understood her better than either our gentle 
mother or 1, but the dear feeble form 
seems to have been gradually failing since 
that meeting with the emissaries of the Bo¬ 
hemian Church. Since the wedding she 
has not once left her bed. She seems to 
live more than ever in the past, and calls peo¬ 
ple by the names she knew them by in her 
early days, speaking of our grandfather as 
“Franz,” and calling our mother “Greta” 


instead of “the mother.” In the past she 
seems to live, and in that glorious present, 
veiled from her view by so thin a veil. 
Towards heaven the heart, whose earthly 
vision is closing, is as open as ever. I sit 
beside her and read the Bible and Dr. Lu¬ 
ther’s books, and Gretclien says to her some 
of the new German hymns, Dr. Luther’s, 
and his translation of John Muss’s hymns. 
To-day she made me read again and again 
this, passage,—“Christian faith is not, as 
some say, an empty husk in the heart until 
love shall quicken it; but if it be true faith, 
it is a sure trust and confidence in the 
heart whereby Christ is apprehended, so 
that Christ is the object of faith; yea, 
rather even, in faith Christ himself is pres¬ 
ent. Faith therefore justifieth because it 
apprehendeth and possesseth this treas¬ 
ure, Christ present. Wherefore Christ ap¬ 
prehended by faith, and dwelling in the 
heart, is the true Christian righteousness.” 

It is strange to sit in the old house, now 
so quiet, with our dear blind father down 
stairs, and only Thekla at home of all the 
sisters, and the light in that brave, strong 
heart of our grandmother growing slowly 
dim; or to hear the ringing sweet child¬ 
ish voice of Gretchen repeating the hymns 
of this glorious new time to the failing 
heart .of the olden time. 

Last night, while I watched beside the 
sick bed, I thought much of Dr, Luther 
alone in the Augustinian monastery, pa¬ 
tiently abiding in the dwelling his teaching 
has emptied, sending forth thence workers 
and teachers throughout the world; and as 
I pondered what he has been to us, to 
Fritz and Eva in their lowly hallowed 
home, to our mother, to our grandmother, 
and the Bohemian people, to little Gretchen 
singing his hymns to me, to the nine 
rescued nuns, to Aunt Agnes in-tlie convent, 
and Christopher at his busy printing-press, 
to young and old, religious and secular; I 
wonder what the new time will bring to 
that brave, tender, warm heart which has 
set so many hearts which were in bondage 
free, and made life rich to so many who 
were poor, yet has left his own life so 
solitary still.- 

XIX. 

EVA’S STORY. 

Thuringen Forest, July, 1523. 

It is certainly very much happier for 
Fritz and me to live in the pastor’s house 







176 


TEE SCEONE ERG-COTTA FAMILY . 


than in the castle; down among the homes 
of men, and the beautiful mysteries of this 
wonderful forest land, instead of towering 
high above all on a fortified height. Not 
of course that I mean the heart may not be 
as lowly in the castle as in the cottage; but 
it seems to me a richer and more fruitful 
life to d,well among the people than to be 
raised above them. The character of the 
dwelling seems to symbolize the nature of 
the life. And wliat lot can be so blessed 
as ours ? 

Linked to all classes that w*e may serve 
our Master who came to minister among all. 
In education equal to the nobles, or rather 
to the patrician families of the great cities, 
who so far surpass the country proprietors 
in culture, in circumstances the pastor is 
nearer the peasant, knowing by experience 
what are the homely trials of straitened 
means. Little offices of kindness can be 
interchanged between us. Muhme Triid- 
cUen finds a pure pleasure in bringing me a 
basked of her new-laid eggs as an acknow¬ 
ledgment of Fritz’s visits to her sick boy; 
and it makes it all the sweeter to carry food 
to the family of the old charcoal burner in 
the forest-clearing that our meals for a day 
or two have to be a little plainer in conse¬ 
quence. I think gifts which come from 
loving contrivance, and a little self-denial 
must be more wholesome to receive than 
the mere overflowings of a.full store. And 
I am sure they are far sweeter to give. 
Our lowly home seems in some sense the 
father’s house of the village; and it is such 
homes, such hallowed centres of love and 
ministry which God through our Luther is 
giving back to village after village in our 
land. 

But, as Fritz says, I must be careful not 
to build our parsonage into a pinnacle 
higher than any castle, just to make a pe¬ 
destal for him, which I certainly some¬ 
times detect myself doing. His gifts seem 
to me so rich, and his character is, I am sure, 
so noble, that it is natural I should picture 
to myself his vocation as the highest in the 
world; that it is the highest, however, I am 
secretly convinced; the highest as long as it 
is the lowliest. 

The people begin to be quite at home 
with us now. There are no great gates, no 
moat, no heavy drawbridge between us and 
the peasants. Our doors stand open; and 
timid hands which could never knock to 
demand admittance at castle or convent 


gate can venture gently to lift our latch. 
Mothers creep to the kitchen with their sick 
children to ask for herbs, lotions, or drinks, 
which I learned to distil in the convent. 
And then I can ask them to sit down, and 
we often naturally begin to speak of Him 
who healed the sick people with a word, 
and took the little children from the moth¬ 
er's arms to his to bless them. Sometimes, 
too, stories of wrong and sorrow come out 
to me which no earthly balm can cure, and 
I can point to Him who only can heal be¬ 
cause he only can forgive. 

Then Fritz says he can preach so differ¬ 
ently from knowing the heart-cares and 
burdens of his flock; and the people seem 
to feel so differently when they meet again 
from the pulpit with sacred words and his¬ 
tories which they have grown familiar with 
in the home. 

A few of the girls came to me also to 
learn sewing or knitting, and to listen or 
learn to read Bible stories, Fritz mean¬ 
while instructs the boys in the Scriptures 
and in sacred music, because the school¬ 
master is waxing old and can teach the 
children little but a few Latin prayers by 
role, and to spell out the German alphabet. 

I could not have imagined such ignorance 
as we have found here. It seems, Fritz says, 
as if the first preachers of Christianity to 
the Germans liad done very much for the 
heart of the nation what the first settlers did 
for its forests, made a clearing here and 
there, built a church, and left the rest to its 
original state. 

The bears and wolves which prowl about 
the forest, and sometimes in winter venture 
close to the thresholds of our houses, are no 
milder than the wild legends which haunt 
the hearts of the peasants. On Sundays 
they attire themselves in their holiday 
clothes, come to hear mass, bow before the 
sacred host, and the crucifix, and image of 
the Virgin, and return to continue during 
the week their everyday terror-worship of 
the spirits of the forest. They seem practi¬ 
cally to think our Lord is the God of the 
church and the village, while the old pagan 
spirits retain possession of the forest. They 
appear scarcely even quite to have decided 
St. Christopher’s question, “ Which is the 
strongest , that I may worship him ?” 

But, alas, whether at church or in the 
forest, the worship they have been taught 
seems to -have been chiefly one of fear. 
The Cobolds and various spirits they believe 




EVA 'S STORY. 


177 


will bewitch tlieir cows, set fire to their 
haystacks, lead them astray through the 
forest, steal their infants from the cradle to 
replace them by fairy changelings. Their 
malignity and wrath they deprecate, there¬ 
fore, by leaving them gleanings of corn*or 
nuts, by speaking of them wicli feigned re¬ 
spect; or by Christian words and prayer, 
which they use as spells. 

From the Almighty God they fear severer 
evil. He, they think, is to sit on the dread¬ 
ful day of wrath on the judgment throne to 
demand strict account of all their misdeeds. 
Against • his wrath also they have been 
taught to use various remedies which seem 
to us little better than a kind of spiritual 
spells; paters, aves, penances, confession, 
indulgences. 

To protect them against the forrest 
sprites they have secret recourse to certain 
gifted persons, mostly shrivelled, solitary, 
weird old women (successors, Fritz says, of 
the old pagan prophetesses), who for money 
perform certain rites of white magic for 
them; or give them written charms to wear, 
or teach them magic rhymes to say. 

To protect them against God, they used 
to have recourse to the priest, who per¬ 
formed masses for them, laid ghosts, ab¬ 
solved sins, promised to turn aside the ven¬ 
geance of offended heaven. 

But in both cases they seem to have the 
melancholy persuasion that the ruling 
power is hostile to them. In both cases, 
religion is not so much a worship as a 
spell ; not an approach to God, but an in¬ 
terposing of something to keep off the 
weight of his dreaded presence. 

When first we began to understand this, 
it used to cost me many tears. 

“ Hew can it be,” I said one day to 
Fritz, “ that all the world seems so utterly 
to misunderstand God ?” 

“ There is an enemy in the world,” he 
said, solemnly “ sowing lies about God in 
every heart.” 

“Yet God is mightier than Satan,” I 
said; “ how is it then that no ray penetrates 
through the darkness from fruitful sea¬ 
sons, from the beauty of the spring-time, 
from the abundance of the harvest, from 
the joys of home, to show the people that 
‘God is love ?” 

“Ah, Eva,” he said sadly, “haveyou for¬ 
gotten that not only is the devil in the 
world, but sin in the heart ? He lies, indeed, 
about God, when he persuades us that God 


grudges us blessings; but he tells the truth 
about tis when he reminds us that we are 
sinners, under the curse of the good and 
loving law. The lie would not stand for 
an instant if it were not founded on the 
truth.. It is only by confessing the truth, 
on which his falsehood is based, that we can 
destroy it. We must say to the peasants, 
“ Your fear is well founded. See on that 
cross what your sin cost!” 

“But the old religion displayed the cross,” 
I said. 

“Thank God, it did—it does!” he said. 
“ But, instead of the crucifix, we have to tell 
of a cross from which the Crucified is gone; 
of an empty tomb and a risen Saviour; of 
the curse removed; of God, who gave the 
Sacrifice, welcoming back the Sufferer to 
the throne.” 

We have not made much change in the 
outward ceremonies. Only, instead of the 
sacrifice of the mass, we have the feast of 
the Holy Supper; no elevation of the host, 
no saying of private masses for the dead; 
and all the prayers, thanksgivings, and 
h} r mns, in German. 

Dr. Luther still retains the Latin in some 
of tlie services of Wittenbrg, on account of 
its being a University town, that the youth 
may be trained in the ancient languages. 
He said he would gladly have some of the 
services in Greek and Hebrew, in order 
thereby to make the study of those languages 
as common as that of Latin. But here in 
the forest, among the ignorant peasants, 
and the knights, who, for the most part, 
forget before old age what little learning 
they acquired in boyhood, Fritz sees no 
reason whatever for retaining the ancient 
language; and delightful it is to wateh the 
faces of the people when he reads the Bible 
or Luther’s hymns, now that some of them 
begin to understand that the divine service 
is something in which their hearts and minds 
are to join, instead of a kind of magic ex¬ 
ternal rite to be performed for them. 

It is a great delight also to us to visit 
Chriemhild and Ulrich von Gersdorf at the 
castle. The old knight and Dame Hermen- 
trud were very reserved with us at first, but 
the knight has always been most courteous 
to me and Dame Hermentrud, now that she 
is convinced we had no intention of trench¬ 
ing on her state, receives us very kindly. 

Between us, moreover, there is another 
tender bond, since she has allowed herself 
to speak of her sister Beatrice, to me known 




178 


THE SCHONBERO-COTTA FAMILY , 


only as the subdued and faded aged nun; 
to Dame Hermentrud, and the aged retain¬ 
ers and villagers ,remembered in her bright, 
but early blighted, girlhood. 

Again and again I have to tell her sister 
the story of her gradual awakening from 
uncomplaining hopelessness to a lowly and 
heavenly rest in Christ; and of her meek 
and peaceful death. 

“ Great sacrifices,” she said once, “ have 
to be made to the honor of a noble lineage, 
Frau Pastorin. 1 also have had my sorrows;” 
and she opened a drawer of a cabinet, and 
showed me the miniature portraits of a noble¬ 
man and his young boy, her husband and 
son, both in armor. “These both were 
slain in a feud with the family to which 
Beatrice’s betrothed belonged,” she said bit¬ 
terly. “And should our lines ever be min¬ 
gled in one ?” 

“ But are these feuds never to die out?” 
1 said. 

“ Yes,” she replied sternly, leading me to 
a window, from which we looked on a ruined 
castle in the distance. ‘ ‘ That feud has died 
out. The family is extinctl” 

“ The Lord Christ tells us to forgive our 
enemies,” I said quietly. 

“Undoubtedly,” she replied; “but the 
Yon Bernsteins were usurpers of our rights, 
robbers and murderers. Such wrongs must 
be avenged, or society would fall to pieces.” 

Towards the peasants Dame Hermentrud 
lias very condescending and kindly feelings, 
and frequently gives us food and clothing 
for them, although she still doubts the wis¬ 
dom of teaching them to read. 

“Every one should be kept in his place,” 
she says. 

And as yet I do not think she can form 
any idea of heaven, except as of a well 
organized community, in which the spirits 
of the nobles preside loftily on the heights, 
while the spirits of the peasants keep meekly 
to the valleys; the primary distinction be¬ 
tween earth and heaven being, that in heaven 
all will know how to keep in tlieir places. 

And no doubt in one sense she is right. 
But how would she like the order in which 
places in heaven are assigned ? 

“The first shall be last, and the last first." 

“He that is chief among you, let him be 
as he that doth serve.” 

Among the peasants sometimes, on the 
other hand, Fritz is startled by the bitterness 
of feeling which betrays itself against the 
lords; how the wrongs of generations are 


treasured up, and the name of Luther is 
chiefly revered from a vague idea that he, 
the peasant’s son, will set the peasants free. 

Ah, when will God’s order be established 
in the world, when each, instead of strug¬ 
gling upwards in selfish ambition, andpress- 
• ing others down in mean pride—looking up 
to envy, and looking down to scorn—shall 
look up to honor and look down to help 1 
when all shall “ by love serve one another?” 

September , 1523. 

We have now a guest of whom I scareelj r 
dare tb speak to Dame Hermentrud. Indeed, 
the whole history Fritz and I will never tell 
to any here. 

A few days since a worn, gray haired old 
man came to our house, whom Fritz wel¬ 
comed as an old friend. It was Priest Rup- 
recht Halier, from Franconia. Fritz had 
told me something of his history, so that I 
knew what he meant, when in a quivering 
voice he said, abruptly, taking Fritz aside,— 

“Bertha is very ill—perhaps dying. I 
must never see her any more. She will not 
suffer it, I know. Can you go and speak a 
few words of comfort to her ?” 

Fritz expressed his readiness to do any¬ 
thing in his power, and it was agreed that 
Priest Ruprecht was to stay with us that 
night, and that they were to start together 
on the morrow for the farm where Bertha 
was at service, which lay not many miles off 
through the forest. 

But in the night I had a thought, which 1 
determined to set going before I mentioned 
it to Fritz, because he will often consent to 
a thing which is once begun, which he would 
think quite impracticable if it is only pro¬ 
posed ; that is, especially as regards anything 
in which 1 am involved. Accordingly, the 
next morning I rose very early and went to 
our neighbor, Farmer Herder, to ask him to 
lend us his old gray pony for the day, to 
bring home an invalid. He consented, and 
before we had finished breakfast the pony 
was at the door. 

“What is this ? ” said Fritz. 

“It is Farmer Herder’s pony to take me to 
the farm where Bertha lives, and to bring 
her back,” I said. 

“Impossible, my love,” said Fritz. 

“But you see it is already all arranged, 
and begun to be done,” I said; “I am 
dressed, and the room is all ready to re¬ 
ceive her.” 

Priest Ruprecht rose from the table, and 






ELSBTS STORY. 


179 


moved towards me, exclaiming fervently,— 
“God bless yon ! ” Then seeming to fear 
that he had said what he had no right to 
say, he added, “God bless you for the 
thought. But it is too much ! ” and he left 
the room. 

“What would you do, Eva ? ” Fritz said, 
looking in much perplexity at me. 

“Welcome Bertha as a sister,” 1 said, 
“and nurse her until she is well.” 

“But how can I suffer you to be under 
one roof ?” he said. 

I could not help my eyes filling with tears. 

“The Lord Jesus suffered such to anoint 
i his feet,” I said, “and she, you told me, 
loves him, has given up all dearest to her to 
keep his words. Let us blot out the past as 
he does, and let her begin life again from 
our home, if God wills it so.” 

Fritz made no further objection. And 
through the dewy forest paths we went, we 
three; and with us, l think we all felt, 
went Another, invisible, the Good Shepherd 
of the wandering sheep. 

Never did the green glades and forest 
flowers and solemn pines seem to me more 
fresh and beautiful, and more like a holy 
cathedral than that morning. 

After a little meek resistance Bertha came 
back with Fritz and me. Her sickness 
i seemed to me to be more the decline of one 
for whom life’s hopes and work are over, 
than any positive disease. And with care, 
the gray pony brought her safely home. 

Never did our dear home seem to welcome 
us so brightly as when we led her back to 
it, for whom it was to be a sanctuary of 
rest, and refuge from bitter tongues. 

There was a little room over the porch 
which we had set apart as the guest-cham¬ 
ber; and very sweet it was to me that Ber¬ 
tha should be its first inmate; very sweet to 
Fritz- and me that our home should be what 
our Lord’s heart is, a refuge for the out¬ 
cast, the penitent, the solitary, and the sor¬ 
rowful. 

Such a look of rest came over her poor, 
worn face, when at last she was laid on her 
little bed! 

“I think I shall get well soon,” she said 
the next morning, “and then you will let 
me stay and be your servant; when I am 
strong I can work really hard, and there is 
something in you both which makes me feel 
this like home.” 

“ We will try,” I said, “ to find out what 
God would have us do.” 


She does improve daily. Yesterday she 
asked for some spinning, or other work to 
do, and it seems to cheer her wonderfully. 
To-day she has been sitting in our dwelling- 
room with her spinning-wheel. I introduced 
her to the villagers who come in as a friend 
who has been very ill. They do not know 
her history. 

January , 1524. 

It is all accomplished now. The little 
guest-chamber over the porch is empty 
again, and Bertha is gone. 

As she was recovering Fritz received a 
letter from Priest Ruprecht, which he read 
in silence, and then laid aside until we were 
alone on one of our expeditions to the old 
charcoal-burner’s in the forest.” 

“Haller wants to see Bertha once more,” 
he said, dubiously. 

“ And why not, Fritz?” I said; “ Why 
should not the old wrong as far as possible 
be repaired, and those who have given each 
other up at God’s commandment, be given 
back to each other by his commandment, 

“I have thought so often, my love,” he 
said, “but I did not know what you would 
think.” 

So after some little difficulty and delay, 
Bertha and Priest Ruprecht Haller were 
married very quietly in our village church, 
and went forth to a distant village in Pome¬ 
rania, by the Baltic Sea, from which Dr. 
Luther had received a request to send them 
a minister of the Gospel. 

It went to my heart to see the two go 
forth together down the village street, those 
two whose youth inhuman laws and human 
weakness had so blighted. There was a 
reverence about his tenderness to her, and 
a wistful lowliness in hers for him, which 
said, “All that thou hast lost for me, as far 
as may be I will make up to thee in the 
years that remain ! ” 

But as we watched her pale face and 
feeble steps, and his bent, though still vig¬ 
orous form, Fritz took my hands as we 
turned back into the house, and said,— 

“It is well. But it can hardly be for 
long 1 ” 

And I could not answer him for tears. 
ELSE’S STORY. 

Wittenberg, August 1524. 

The slow lingering months of decline are 
over. Yesterday our grandmother died. 
As I look for the last time on the face that 





180 


THE SCILONB ERG-COTTA FAMILY. 


had smiled on me from childhood, the hands 
which rendered so many little loving services 
to me, none of which can evermore be re¬ 
turned to her, what a sacred tenderness 
is thrown-over all recollection of her, how 
each little act of thoughtful consideration 
and self denial rushes back on the heart, 
what love I can see glowing through the 
anxious care which sometimes made her a 
little querulous, especially with my father, 
although never lately. 

Can life ever be quite the same again? 
Can we ever forget to bear tenderly with 
little infirmities such as those of hers, which 
seem so blameless now, or to prize with a 
thankfulness which would flood with sun¬ 
shine our little cares, the love which must 
one day be silent to us as she is now? 

Her death seems to age us all into another 
generation! She lived from the middle of 
the old world into the full morning of the 
new; and a whole age of the past seems to 
die with her. But after seeing those Bohe¬ 
mian deputies and knowing that Fritz and 
Eva were married, she ceased to wish to 
live. She had lived, she said, through two 
mornings of time on earth, and now she 
longed for the day-break of heaven. 

But yesterday morning, one of us; and 
now one of the heavenly host! Yesterday 
we knew every thought of her heart, every 
detail of her life, and now she is removed 
into a sphere of which we know less 
than of the daily life of the most ancient 
of the patriarch’s. As Dr. Luther says, 
the infant on its mother’s breast has as much 
understanding of the life before it, as we 
of the life before us after death. 

“ Yet,” he saith also, “since God hath 
made this world of earth and sky so fair, 
how much fairer that imperishable world 
beyond!” 

All seems to me clear and bright after the 
resurrection; but noio ? where is that spirit 
now, so familiar to us and so dear, and 
now so utterly separated? 

Dr. Luther said, “A Christian should say, 
I know that it is thus I shall journey hence; 
when my soul goes forth charge is given to 
God’s king’s and high princes, who are the 
dear angels, to receive me and convoy me 
safely home.” “The Holy Scriptures,” he 
writes, “teach nothing of purgatory, but 
tell us that the spirits of the just enjoy 
the sweetest and most delightful peace and 
rest. How they lived there,indeed, we know 
ton., or what the place is where they dwell. 


But this we know assuredly, they are in no 
grief or pain, but rest in the grace of God. 
As in this life they were wont to fall softly 
asleep in the guard and keeping of God 
and the dear angels, without fear of harm, 
although the devils might prowl around 
them; so after this life do they repose in 
the hand of God.” 

“To depart and be with Christ is far 
better. 

“ To-day in paradise icith me .” 

“ Absent from the body, at home with the 
Lord.” 

Everything for our peace and comfort 
concerning those who are pure depends 
on what those words ‘ ‘ with me ” were to 
them and are to us. Where and how they 
live, indeed, we know not; with whom we 
know. The more then 0 our Saviour and 
theirs, we know of thee, the more we know 
of them. With thee, indeed, the waiting 
time before the resurrection can be no cold 
drear ante-chamber of the palace. Where 
thou art, must be light, love, and home. 

Precious as Dr. Luther’s own words are, 
what are they at a time like this, compared 
with the Word of God he has unveiled to 
us ? 

My mother, however, is greatly cheered 
by these words of his, “ Our Lord and 
Saviour grant us joyfully to see each other 
again hereafter. For our faith is sure, and 
we doubt not that we shall see each other 
again with Christ in a little while; since the 
departure from this life to be with Christ is 
less, in God’s sight, than if I go from you 
to Mansfeld, or you took leave of me to go 
from Wittenberg to Mansfeld. This is 
assuredly true. A brief hour of sleep and 
all will be changed.” 

Wittenberg, September , 1524. 

During this month we have been able 
often to give thanks that the beloved feeble 
form is at rest. The times seem very troub¬ 
lous. Dr. Luther thinks most seriously 
of them. ' Rumors have reached us for some 
time of an uneasy feeling among the peas¬ 
antry. Fritz wrote about it from the Thiir- 
ingen forest. The peasants, as our good 
Elector said lately, have suffered many 
wrongs from their lords; and Fritz says 
they had formed the wildest hopes of better 
days from Dr. Luther and his words. They 
thought the days of freedom had come. 
And bitter and hard it is for them to learn 
that the Gospel brings freedom now as of 
old by giving strength to suffer, instead of 




ELSES STORY. 


181 


by suddenly redressing wrong. The fanat¬ 
ics, moreover, have been among them. The 
Zwickau prophets and Thomas Mtinzer 
(silenced last year at Wittenberg by Luther’s 
return from the Wartburg), have promised 
them all they actually expected from Luther. 
Once more, they say, God is sending in¬ 
spired men oil earth, to introduce a new 
order of things, no more to teach the saints 
how to bow, suffer, and be patient; but how 
to fight and avenge themselves of their ad¬ 
versaries, and to reign. 

October , 1524. __ 

Now, alas, the peasants are in open revolt, 
rushing through the land by tens of thou¬ 
sands. The insurrection began in the Black 
Forest, and now it sweeps throughout the 
land, gathering strength as it advances, and 
bearing everything before it by the mere 
force of numbers and movement. City after 
city yields and admits them, and swears to 
their Twelve Articles, which in themselves 
they say are not so bad, if only they were 
enforced by better means. Castle after 
castle is assailed and falls. Ulrich writes in 
burning indignation at the cruel deaths they 
have inflicted on noble men and women, 
and on their pillaging the convents. Fritz, 
on the other hand, writes entreating us not 
to forget the long catalogue of legalized 
wrongs which had led to this moment of 
fierce and lawless vengeance. 

Dr. Luther, sympathizing with the peas¬ 
ants by birth, and by virtue of his own 
quick and generous indignation at injustice, 
whilst with a prophet’s plainness he blames 
the nobles for their exactions and tyranny, 
yet sternly demands the suppression of the 
revolt with the sword. He says this is essen¬ 
tial, if it were only to free the honest and 
well-meaning peasantry from the tyranny 
of the ambitious and turbulent men who 
comoel them to join their banner, on pain 
of death. With a heart that bleeds at every 
severity, he counsels the severest measures 
as the most merciful. More than once he 
and others of the Wittenberg doctors have 
succeeded in quieting and dispersing riotous 
bands of the peasants assembled by tens of 
thousands, with a few calm and earnest 
words. But bitter, indeed, are these times 
to him The peasants whom he pities and 
because he pities condemns, call out that he 
lias betrayed them, and threaten his life. 
The prelates and princes of the old religion 
declare all this disorder and pillage are only 
the natural consequenoes of his false doc¬ 


trine. But between them both he goes 
steadfastly forward, speaking faithful words 
to all. More and more, however, as terrible 
rumors reach us of torture, and murder, and 
wild pillage, he seems to become convinced 
that mercy and vigor are on the same side. 
And now be, whose journey through Ger¬ 
many not three years since was a triumphal 
procession, has to ride secretly from place 
to place on his errands of peace-making, in 
danger of being put to death by the people 
if he were discovered! 

My heart aches for these peasants. 
These are not these Pharisees who were 
“not blind,” but understood only too well 
what they rejected. They are the “ multi¬ 
tudes,” the common people, who as of old 
heard the voice of love and truth gladly; 
for whom dying He pleaded, “ They know 
not what they do.” 

April , 1525. 

The tide has turned. The army of the 
empire, under Truchsess, is out. Philip of 
Hesse, after quieting his own dominions, is 
come to Saxony to suppress the revolt here. 
Our own gentle and merciful Eleptor, who 
so reluctantly drew the sword, is, they say, 
dying. The world is full of change! 

Meantime, in our little Wittenberg world, 
changes are in prospect. It seems proba¬ 
ble that Dr. Luther, after settling the other 
eight nuns, and endeavoring also to find a 
home for Catherine von Bora, will expouse 
her himself. A few months since, he tried 
to persuade her to marry Glatz, pastor of 
Orlamund, but she refused. And now it 
seems certain that the solitary Augustinian 
convent will become a home, and that she 
will make it so. 

Gottfried and I cannot but rejoice. In 
this world of tumult and unrest, it seems so 
needful that that warm, earnest heart 
should have one place where it can rest, 
one heart that will understand and be true 
to him if all else should become estranged, 
as so many have. And this, we trust, 
Catherine von Bora will be to him. 

Reserved, and with an innate dignity, 
which will befit the wife of him whom God 
has called in so many ways to be the leader 
of the hearts of men, she has a spirit which 
will prevent her sinking into the mere re¬ 
flection of that resolute character, and a 
cheerfulness and womanly tact which will, 
we hope, sustain him through many a de¬ 
pressing hour, such as those who wear 
earth's crowns of any kind must know. 





18 * 


TEE SCEONB ERG-COTTA FAMILY, 


December , 1525. 

This year has, indeed, been a year of 
changes. The peasant revolt is crushed. 
At Frankenhausen, the last great victory 
was gained. Thomas Miinzer was slain, 
and his undisciplined hosts fled in hopeless 
confusion. The revolt is crushed, alas! 
Gottfried says, as men crush their enemies 
when once in their power, exceeding the 
crime in the punishment, and laying up a 
store of future revolt and vengeance for 
future generations. 

The good and wise Elector Friedrich died 
just before the victory. It is well, per¬ 
haps, that he did not live to see the terrible 
vengeance that has been inflicted, the road¬ 
sides lined with gibbets, torture returned by 
torture, insult by cruel mocking. The poor 
deluded people, especially the peasantry, 
wept for the good Elector, and said, “ Ah, 
God, have mercy on us ! We have lost our 
father !” He used to speak kindly to their 
children in the fields, and was always ready 
to listen to a tale of wrong. He died hum¬ 
bly as a Christian; he was buried royally as 
a prince* 

Shortly before his death, his chaplain, 
Spalatin, came to see him. The Elector 
gave him his hand, and said, “ You do well 
to come to me. We are commanded to 
visit the sick.” 

Neither brother nor any near relative was 
with him when he died. The services of 
all brave men were needed in those stormy 
days. But he was not forsaken. To the 
childless, solitary sufferer, his faithful ser¬ 
vants were like a family. 

“ Oh, dear children,” he said, “ I suffer 
greatly !” 

Then Joachim Sack, one of his house¬ 
hold, a Silesian, said,— 

“ Most gracious master, if God will, you 
will soon be better.” 

Shortly after, the dying prince said,— 

“ Dear children, I am ill indeed.” 

And Sack answered,— 

“ Gracious lord, the Almighty God sends 
you all this with a Father’s love, and with 
the best will to you.” 

Then the prince repeated softly, in Latin, 
the words of Job, “ The Lord gave, and 
the Lord hath taken away; blessed be the 
name of the Lord.” 

And once more he said,— 

“ Dear children, I am very ill.” 

And the faithful Joachim comforted him 
again,—“ The gracious Master, the Al¬ 


mighty God, sends it all to your electoral 
highness from the greatest love.” 

The prince clasped his hands, and said,— 

“ For that I can trust my good God!'’ 
and added,” “ Help me, help me, 0 my 
God.” 

And after receiving the holy communion 
in both kinds, he called his servants around 
him, and said,— 

“ Dear children, I entreat you, that in 
whatever I have done you wrong, by word 
or deed, you will forgive me for God’s sake, 
and pray others to do the same. For we 
princes do much wrong often to poor peo¬ 
ple that should not be.” 

As he spoke thus, all that were in the 
room could not-restrain their tears, and see¬ 
ing that, he said,— 

“Dear children, weep not for me. It 
will not be long with me now. But think 
of me, and pray to God for me.” 

Spalatin had copied some verses of the 
Bible for him, which he put on his spectacles 
to read for himself. He thought much of 
Luther, whom, much as he had befriended 
him, he had never spoken to, and sent for 
him. But it was in vain. Luther was on 
the Hartz mountains, endeavoring to quell 
the peasants’ revolt. That interview is 
deferred to the world where all earthly dis¬ 
tinctions are forgotten, but where the least 
Christian services are remembered. 

So, “a child of peace,” as one said, “ he 
departed, and rests in peace, through the 
high and only merits of the only Son of 
God,” in whom, in his last testament, he 
confessed was “ all his hope.” 

It was a solemn day for Wittenberg when 
they laid him in his grave in the Electoral 
Church, which he had once so richly pro¬ 
vided with relics. His body lying beneath 
it is the most sacred relic it enshrines for 
us now. 

Knights and burghers met the coffin at 
the city gate; eight noblemen carried it, 
and a long train of mourners passed 
through the silent streets. Many chanted 
around the tomb the old Latin hymns, “ In 
media vitae,” aud “ Si bona suseipimur,” 
and also the German, “ From deepest need 
I cry to Thee,” and— 

“ In Fried und Freud fahr ick dahin,” 

“ I journey hence in peace and joy.” 

The money which would, in former times, 
have purchased masses for his soul, was 
given to the poor. And Dr. Luther 





ELBE'S STORY. 


188 


preached a sermon on the promise, “ Those 
who sleep in Jesus, God will bring with 
him,” which makes it needless, indeed, to 
pray for the repose of those who thus sleep. 

Gretehen asked me in the evening what 
the hymn meant,— 

“ I journey hence in peace and joy;” 

I told her it was the soul of the prince that 
thus journeyed lienee. 

“ The procession was so dark and sad,” 
she said, “the words did not seem to suit.” 

“That procession was going to the grave,” 
said Thekla, who was with us. “There 
was another procession, which we could not 
see, going to heaven. The holy angels, 
clothed in radiant white, were carrying the 
happy spirit to heaven, and singing, as they 
went anthems such as that, while we were 
weeping here.” 

“I should like to see the procession of 
the dear angels, Aunt Thekla,” said Gret¬ 
ehen. “ Mother says the good Elector had 
no little children to love him, and no one to 
call him any tenderer name than ‘Your elec¬ 
toral highness’ when he died. But on the 
other side of the grave he will not be lonely, 
will he ? The holy angels will have tender 
names for him there, will they not?” 

“The Lord Jesus will, at all events,” I 
said. “ He calletli his own sheep by 
name.” 

And Gretehen was comforted for the 
Elector. 

Not long after that day of mourning came 
a day of rejoicing to our household, and to 
all the friendly circle at Wittenberg. 

Quietly, in our house, on June the 23d, Dr. 
Luther andCatherine von Bora were married. 

A few days afterwards the wedding feast 
was held on the home-bringing of the bride 
to the Augustinian cloister, which, together 
with “twelve brewings of beer yearly,” the 
good Elector John Frederic has given Luther 
as a wedding present. Brave old John 
Luther and his wife, and Luther’s pious 
mother came to the feast from Mansfeld, 
and a day of much festivity it was to all. 

And now for six months, what Luther 
calls “that great thing, the union and com¬ 
munion between husband and wife,” hath 
hallowed the old convent into a home, whilst 
the prayer of faith and the presence of 
Him whom faith sees, have consecrated the 
home into a sanctuary of love and peace. 

Many precious things hath Dr. Luther 
said of marriage. God, he says, has set the 
type of marriage before us throughout all 


creation, Each creature seeks its perfection 
through being blent with another. The 
very heaven and earth picture it to us, for 
does not the sky embrace the green earth as 
its bride? “ Precious, excellent, glorious,” 
he says, “ is that word of the Holy Ghost, 
‘the heart of the husband doth safely trust 
in her.’ ” 

He says also, that so does he honor the 
married state, that before he thought of 
marrying his Catherine, he had resolved, if 
he should be laid suddenly on his dying 
bed, to be espoused before he died, and to 
give two silver goblets to the maiden as his 
wedding and dying gifts. And lately he 
counselled one who was to be married, 
“Dear friend, do thou as I did, when I 
would take my Kathe. I prayed to our 
Lord God with all my heart. A good wife 
is a companion of life, and her husband’s 
solace and joy, and when a pious man and 
wife love each other truly, the devil has 
little power to hurt them.” 

“All men,” he said, “ believe and under¬ 
stand that marriage is marriage, a hand a 
hand, riches are riches; but to believe that 
marriage is of God, and ordered and ap¬ 
pointed by God; that the hand is made 
by God, that wealth and all we have and 
are is given by God, and is to be used as 
his work to his praise, that is not so com¬ 
monly believed. And a good wife,” he said, 
“should be loved and honored, firstly, 
because she is God’s gift and present; sec¬ 
ondly, because God has endowed woman 
with noble and great virtues, which, when 
‘they are modest, faithful, and believing,far 
overbalance their little failings and infir, 
mities.” 

Wittenberg, December , 1525. 

Another year all but closed—a year of 
mingled storm and sunshine ! The sorrow 
vre dreaded for our poor Thekla is come at 
last too surely. Bertrand de Crequy is dead! 
He died in a prison alone, for conscience’ 
sake, but at peace in God. A stranger from 
Flanders brought her a few words of fare¬ 
well in his handwriting, and afterwards saw 
him dead, so that she cannot doubt. She 
seems to move about like one walking in a 
dream, performing every common act of 
life as before, but with the soul asleep. We 
are afraid what will be the end of it. God 
help her ! She is now gone for the Christ¬ 
mas to Eva and Fritz. 

Sad divisions have sprung up among the 
evangelical Christians. Dr. Luther is very 





184 


TEE SC HONB ERG-COTTA FAMILY. 


angry at some doctrines of Karlstadt and 
the Swiss brethren concerning the holy 
sacraments, and says they will be wise above 
what is written. We grieve at these things, 
especially as our Atlantis has married a 
Swiss, and Dr. Luther will not acknowledge 
them as brethren. Our poor Atlantis is 
much perplexed, and writes that she is sure 
her husband meaneth not to undervalue the 
Holy Supper, and that in very truth they 
find their Saviour present there as we do. 
But Dr. Luther is very stern about it. He 
fears disorders and wild opinions will be 
brought in again, such as led to the slaughter 
of the peasants’ war. Yet he himself is 
sorely distressed about it, and saith often 
that the times are so evil the end of the 
world is surely drawing nigh. 

In the midst of all this perplexity, we who 
love him rejoice that he has that quiet home 
in the Augustei, where “Lord Kathe,” as 
he calis her, and her little son Hanschen 
reign, and where the dear, holy angels, as 
Luther says, watch over the cradle of the 
child. It was a festival to all Wittenberg 
when little Hans Luther was born. 

Luther’s house is like the sacred hearth of 
Wittenberg and of all the land. There in 
the winter evenings he welcomes his friends 
to the cheerful room with the large window, 
and sometimes they sing good songs or holy 
hymns in parts, accompanied by the lute and 
harp, music at which Dr. Luther is sure 
King David would be amazed and delight¬ 
ed, could he rise from his grave, “ since 
there can have been none so fine in his 
days.” “The devil,” he says, “always flies 
from music, especially from sacred music, 
because he is a despairing spirit, and cannot 
bear joy and gladness.” 

And in the summer days he sits under the 
pear-tree in his garden, while Katlie works 
beside him; or he plants seeds and makes a 
fountain; or he talks to her and his friends 
about the wonders of beauty God has set in 
the humblest flowers, and the picture of the 
resurrection he gives us in every delicate 
twig that in spring bursts from the dry 
brown stems of winter. 

More and more we see what a good wife 
God has given him in Catherine von Bora, 
with her cheerful, firm, and active spirit, 
and her devoted affection for him. Already 
she has the management of all the finance 
of the household, a very necessary arrange¬ 
ment, if the house of Luther is not to go to 
ruin, for Dr. Luther would give everything, 


even to his clothes and furniture, to any one 
in distress, and he will not receive any pay¬ 
ment either for his books or for teaching 
the students. 

She is a companion for him, moreover, 
and not a mere listener, which he likes, 
how.ever much he may laugh at her elo¬ 
quence, “in her own department surpassing 
Cicero’s,” and sarcastically relate how when 
first they were married, not knowing what 
to say, but wishing to “make conversation,” 
she used to say, as she sat at her work be¬ 
side him, “Herr Doctor, is not the lord high 
chamberlain in Prussia the brother of the 
margrave?” hoping that such high discourse 
would not be too trifling for him ! Pie says, 
indeed, that if he were to seek an obedient 
wife, he would carve one for himself out of 
stone. But the belief among us is, that 
there are few happier homes than Dr. 
Luther’s; and if at any time Catherine finds 
him oppressed with a sadness too deep for 
her ministry to reach, she quietly creeps out 
and calls Justus Jonas or some other friend 
to come and cheer the Doctor. Often, also, 
she reminds him of the letters he has to 
write; and he likes to have her sitting by 
him while he writes, which is a proof suffi¬ 
cient that she can be silent when necessary, 
whatever jests the Doctor may make about 
her “long sermons, which she certainly 
never would have made, if, like other 
preachers, she had taken the precaution of 
beginning with the Lord’s Prayer ! ” 

The Christian married life, as he says, 
“ is a humble and holy life,” and well, in¬ 
deed, is it for our German Reformation that 
its earthly centre is neither a throne, nor a 
hermitage, but a lowly Christian home. 

Parsonage of Gersdorf, June, 1527. 

I am staying with Eva while Fritz is ab¬ 
sent making a journey of inspection of the 
schools throughout Saxony at Dr. Luther’s 
desire, with Dr. Philip Melancthon, and 
many other learned men. 

Dr. Luther has set his heart on improving 
the education of the children, and is anxious 
to have some of the revenues of the sup¬ 
pressed convents appropriated to this pur¬ 
pose before all are quietly absorbed by the 
nobles and princes for their own uses. 

It is a renewal of youth to me, in my 
sober middle age to be here alone with Eva, 
and yet not alone. For the terror of my 
youth is actually under our roof with me. 
Aunt Agnes is an inmate of Fritz’s home 1 
During the pillaging of the convents and 




ELSE'S STORY. 


185 


dispersing of the nuns, which took place in 
the dreadful peasants’ war, she was driven 
from Nimptschen, and after spending a few 
weeks with our mother at Wittenberg, has 
finally taken refuge with Eva and Fritz. 

But Eva’s little twin children, Heinz and 
Agnes, will associate a very different pic¬ 
ture with the name of Aunt Agnes from the 
rigid, lifeless face and voice which used to 
haunt my dreams of a religious life, and 
make me dread the heaven, of whose inhabi¬ 
tants, 1 was told, Aunt Agnes was a type. 

Perhaps the white hair softens the high 
but furrowed brow; yet surely there was not 
that kindly gleam in the grave eyes I remem¬ 
ber, or that tender tone in the voice. Is it 
an echo of the voices of the little ones she 
so dearly loves, and a reflection of the sun¬ 
shine in their eyes ? No; better than that 
even, I know, because Eva told me. It is 
the smile and the music of a heart made as 
that of a little child through believing in the 
Saviour. It is the peace of the Pharisee, 
who has won the publican’s blessing by 
meekly taking the publican's place. 

I confess, however, I do not think Aunt 
Agnes’s presence improves the discipline of 
Eva’s household. She is exceedingly slow 
to detect any traces of original sin in Eva’s 
children, while to me, on the contrary, the 
wonder is that any creature so good and ex¬ 
emplary as Eva should have children so 
much like other people’s—even mine. One 
would have thought that her infants would 
have been a kind of half angels, taking 
naturally to all good things, and never 
doing wrong except by mistake in a gentle 
and moderate way. Whereas, I must say, 
I here frequent little wails of rebellion from 
Eva’s nursery, especially at seasons of ablu¬ 
tion, much as from mine; and I do not think 
even our Fritz ever showed more decided 
pleasure in mischief, or more determined 
self-will, than Eva’s little rosy Heinz. 

One morning after a rather prolonged lit¬ 
tle battle between Heinz and his mother 
about some case of oppression of little 
Agnes, I suggested to Aunt Agnes— 

“ Only to think that Eva, if she had kept 
to her vocation, might have attained to the 
full ideal of the ‘ Theologia Teutsch,’ have 
became a St. Elizabeth, or indeed far bet¬ 
ter ! ” 

Aunt Agnes looded up quickly— 

“ And you mean to say she is not better 
now ! You imagine that spinning medita¬ 
tions all day long is more Christian work 


for a woman than training these little ones 
for God, and helping them to fight then- 
first battles with the devil ! ” 

Perhaps not, Aunt Agnes,” I said, “but 
then, you see I know nothing of the inside 
of a convent.” 

“ I do ,” said Aunt Agnes emphatically, 
“and also of the inside of a nun’s heart. 
And I know what wretched work we make 
of it when we try to take our education out 
of our Heavenly Father’s hands into our 
own. Do you think,” she continued, “ Eva 
did not learn more in the long nights when 
she watched over her sick child than she 
could have learned in a thousand self-im¬ 
posed vigils before any shrine ? And to¬ 
night, when she kneels with Heinz, as she 
will, and says with him, ‘ Pray God forgive 
little Heinz for being a cross, naughty boy 
to-day,’ and lays him on his pillow, and as 
she watches him fall asleep, asks God to 
bless and train the wilful little one, and 
then asks for pardon herself, do you not 
think she learns more of what forgiveness 
means and ‘ Our Father,’ than from a 
years’s study of the ‘ Theologia Teutsch ? ’ ” 

I smiled, and said, “ Dear Aunt Agnes, 
if Fri:z wants to hear Eva’s praises well 
sung, I will tell him to suggest to you 
whether it might not have been a higher 
vocation for her to remain a nun! ” 

“Ah! child,” said Aunt Agnes, with a 
little mingling of the old sternness and the 
new tenderness in her voice; “ if you had 
learned what I have from those lips, and 
in this house, you could not, even in jest, 
bear to hear a syllable of reflection on 
either.” 

Indeed, even Aunt Agnes cannot honor 
this dear home more than I do. Open to 
every peasant who has a sorrow or a wrong 
to tell, it is also linked with the castle; and 
linked to both, not by any class privileges, 
but because here peasants and nobles alike 
are welcomed as men and women, and as 
Christian brothers and sisters. 

Now and then we pay a visit to the castle, 
where our noble sister Chriemhild is en¬ 
throned. But my tastes have always been 
burgher like, and the parsonage suits me 
much better than the castle. Besides, I 
cannot help feeling some little awe of Dame 
Hermentrud, especially when my two boys 
are with me, who are apt to indulge in a 
burgher freedom in their demeanor. The 
furniture and arrangements of the castle 
are a generation behind our own at Witten- 







186 


THE 8CH0NBERG-C0TTA FAMILY. 


berg, and I cannot at all make the boys 
comprehend the majesty of the Gersdorf 
ancestry, nor the necessary inferiority of 
people who live in streets to those who live 
in isolated rock fortresses. So that 1 am 
reduced to the Bible law of “ honor to grey 
hairs” to enforce due respect to Dame 
Hermentrud. 

Little Fritz wants to know what the Gers¬ 
dorf ancestry are renowned for. “ Was it 
for learning ? ” he asked. 

I thought not, as it is only this genera¬ 
tion who have learned to read, and the old 
knight even is suspected of having strong 
reasons for preferring listening to Ulrich’s 
reading to using a book for himself. 

“ Was it, then, for courage ? ” 

“ Certainly, the Gersdorfs had always 
been brave.” 

“ With whom, then, had they fought ? ” 

“ At the time of the Crusades, I believed, 
against the infidels.” 

“ .4nd since then ? ” 

I did not feel sure, but looking at the 
ruined castle of Bernstein and the neighbor¬ 
ing height, I was afraid it was against their 
neighbors. 

And so, after much cross questioning, the 
distinctions of the Gersdorf family seemed 
to be chiefly reduced to their having been 
Gersdorfs, and having lived at Gersdorf for 
a great many hundred years. 

Then Fritz desired to know in what way 
his cousins, the Gersdorfs of this generation, 
are to distinguish themselves? This ques¬ 
tion also was a perplexity to me, as I know 
it often is to Chriemhild. They niust noton 
any account be merchants; and now that in 
the Evangelical Church the great abbeys are 
suppressed, and some of the bishoprics are 
to be secularized, it is hardly deemed con¬ 
sistent with Gersdorf dignity that they 
should become clergymen. The eldest will 
have the castle. One of them may study 
civil law. For the others nothing seems 
open but the idling dependent life of pages 
and military attendants in the castles of 
some of the greater nobles. 

If the past is the inheritance of the 
knights, it seems to me the future is far 
more likely to be the possession of the active 
burgher families. I cannot but feel thank¬ 
ful for the lot which opens to our boys hon¬ 
orable spheres of action in the great cities 
of the empire. There seems no room for 
expansion in the life of those petty nobles. 
While the patrician families of the "cities are 


sailing on the broad current of the times, 
encouraging art, advancing learning, them¬ 
selves sharing all the thought and progress 
of the time, these knightly families in the 
country remain isolated in their grim castles, 
ruling over a few peasants, and fettered to 
a narrow local circle, while the great current 
of the age sweeps by them. 

Gottfried says, narrow and ill-used privi¬ 
leges always end in ruining those who 
bigotedly cling to them. The exclusiveness 
which begins with shutting others out, 
commonly ends in shuttingthe exclusive in. 
The lordly fortress becomes the narrow 
prison. 

All these thoughts passed through my 
mind as I left the rush-strewn floor of the 
hall where Dame Hermentrud had received 
me and my boys, with a lofty condescension, 
while, in the course of the interview, I had 
heard her secretly remarking to Chriemhild 
how unlike the cousins were; “ it was quite 
singular how entirely the Gersdorf children 
were unlike the Cottas.” 

But it was not until I entered Eva’s lowly 
home, that I detected the bitter root of 
wounded pride from which my deep social 
speculations sprang. I had been avenging 
myself on the Schonberg-Gersdorf past by 
means of the Cotta-Reichenbach future. 
Yes; Fritz and Eva’s lowly home is nobler 
than Chriemliild’s, and richer than ours; 
richer and nobler just in as far as it is more 
lowly and more Christian ! 

And I learned my lesson after this man¬ 
ner. 

‘“Dame Hermentrud is very proud,” I 
said to Eva, as I returned from the castle 



what ground.” 

Eva made no reply, but a little amused 
smile played about her mouth, which for the 
moment rather aggravated me. 

“ Do you mean to say she is not proud, 
Eva?” 1 continued controversially. 

“ I did not mean to say that any one was 
not proud,” said Eva. 

“ Did you mean then to imply that she 
has anything to be proud of?” 

*' There are all the ghosts of all the 
Gersdorfs,” said Eva; “and there is the 
high ancestral privilege of wearing velvet 
and pearls, which you and I dare not as¬ 
sume.” 

“ Surely,” said 1, “ the privilege of pos¬ 
sessing Lucas Cranach’s pictures, and Al- 









ELSE’8 STORY. 187 


brecht Dvirer’s carvings, is better than 
that.” 

“ Perhaps it is,” said Eva demurely; 
“ perhaps wealth is as firm ground for 
pride to build on as ancestral rauk. Those 
who have neither, like Fritz and I, may be 
the most candid judges.” 

I laughed, and felt a cloud pass from my 
heart. Eva had dared to call the sprite 
which vexed me by his right name, and 
like any other gnome or cobold, he van¬ 
ished instantly. 

Thank God our Eva is Cousin Eva again, 
instead of Sister Ave; that her single heart 
is here among us to flash the light on our 
consciences just by shining, instead of being 
hidden under a saintly canopy in the shrine 
of some distant convent. 

July , 1527. 

Fritz is at home. It was delightful to 
see what a festival his return was, not only 
in the home, but in the village—the child¬ 
ren running to the doors to receive a smile, 
the mothers stopping in their work to wel¬ 
come him. The day after his return was 
Sunday. As usual, the children of the 
village were assembled at five o’clock in the 
morning to church. Among them were 
our boys, and Chriemhild’s, and Eva’s 
twins, Heinz and Agnes—rosy, merry 
children of the forest as they are. All, 
however, looked as good and sweet as if 
they had been children of Eden, as they 
tripped that morning after each other over 
the village green, their bright little forms 
passing in and out of the shadow of the 
great beech-tree which stands opposite the 
church. 

The little company all stood together in 
the church before the altar, while Fritz 
stood on the step and taught them. At 
first they sang a hymn, the elder boys in 
Latin, and then altogether in German; and 
then Fritz heard them say Luther’s Cate¬ 
chism. How sweetly the lisping, childish 
voices answered his deep, manly voice; 
like the rustling of countless summer leaves 
outside, or the fall of the countless tiny 
cascades of the village stream in the still 
summer morning. 

“ My dear child, what art thou ?” he said. 

Answered from the score of little hushed, 
yet ringing voices— 

“ I am a Christian.” 

“ How dost thou know that ?” 

“ Because I am baptized, and believe on 
iny dear Lord Jesus Christ.” 


“ What is it needful that a Christian 
should know for his salvation ?” 

Answer—“ The Catechism.” 

And afterwards, in the part concerning 
the Christian faith, the sweet voices re¬ 
peated the Creed in German. 

“ I believe in God the Father Almighty.” 

And Fritz’s voice asked gently— 

“ What does that mean ?” 

Answer—“ I believe that God has created 
me and all creatures; has given me body 
and soul, eyes, ears, and all my limbs, rea¬ 
son, and all my senses, and still preserves 
them to me; and that he has also given me 
my clothes and my shoes, and whatsoever I 
eat or drink; that richly and daily he pro¬ 
vides me with all needful nourishment for 
body and life, and guards me from all dan¬ 
ger and evil; and all this out of pure 
fatherly divine goodness and mercy, with¬ 
out any merit or deserving of mine. And 
for all this I am bound to thank and praise 
him, and also to serve and obey him. This 
is certainly true.” 

Again— 

“ I believe in Jesus Christ,” etc. 

“ What does that mean?” 

“ 1 believe that Jesus Christ, true God, 
begotten of the Father from eternity, 
and also true man, born of the Virgin 
Mary, is my Lord, who had redeemed me, 
a lost and condemned human creature, has 
purchased and won me from all sins, from 
death and from the power of the devil, not 
with silver and gold, but with his own 
holy precious blood, and with>his innocent 
suffering and dying, that I may be his own, 
and live in the kingdom under him, and 
serve him in endless righteousness, inno¬ 
cence, and blessedness, even as he is risen 
from the dead, and lives and reigns for 
ever. This is certainly true.” 

And again, 

“ 1 believe in the Holy Ghost.” 

“ What does that mean?” 

“ I believe that not by my own reason or 
power can I believe on Jesus Christ my 
Lord, or come to him; but the Holy Ghost 
has called me through the Gospel, en¬ 
lightened me with his gifts, sanctified and 
kept me in the right faith, as he calls all 
Christian people on earth, gathers, en¬ 
lightens, sanctifies them, and through 
Jesus keeps them in the right and only 
faith, among which Christian people he 
daily richly forgives all sins, to me and all 
elievers, and at the last day will awaken 





188 


THE 8GH0NBEHG-C0TTA FAMILY , 


me and all the dead, and to me and all be¬ 
lievers in Christ will give eternal life. This 
is certainly true.” 

And again, on the Lord’s Prayer, the 
children’s voices began,— 

“ Our Father who art in heaven.” 

“ What does that mean ?” 

“ God will in this way sweetly persuade 
us to believe that he is our true Father, and 
that we are his true children; that cheer¬ 
fully and with all confidence we may ask 
of him as dear children ask of their dear 
fathers.’* 

And at the end, 

“ What does Amen mean ?” 

“That I should be sure such prayers are 
acceptable to the Father in heaven, and 
granted by him, for he himself has taught 
us thus to pray, and promised that he will 
hear us. Amen, amen—that means, Yes, 
yes, that shall he done.” 

And when it was asked,— 

“ Who receives the holy sacrament worth¬ 
ily?” 

Softly came the answer,— 

* “He is truly and rightly prepared who 
has faith in these words, ‘ Given and shed 
for you, for the forgiveness of sins.’ But 
he who doubts or disbelieves these words, 
is unworthy and unprepared; for the 
words, ‘/or you ,’ need simple believing 
hearts,” 

As I listened to the simple living words, 
I could not wonder that Dr. Luther often 
repeats them to himself, or rather, as he 
says, “ to God,” as an antidote to the fiery 
darts of the wicked one. 

And so the childish voices died away in 
the morning stillness of the church, and the 
shadows of the columns fell silently across 
the grassy mounds or wooden crosses, be¬ 
neath which rest the village dead; and as 
we went home, the long shadow of the 
beech-tree fell on the dewy village green. 

Then, before eleven o’clock, the church 
bell began to ring, and the peasants came 
trooping from the different clearings of the 
forest. One by one we watched the var¬ 
ious groups in their bright holiday dresses, 
issuing out of the depths of dark green 
shade, among them, doubtless, manv a 
branch of the Luther family who live in 
this neighborhood. Afterwards each door 
in the village poured out its contributions, 
and soon the little church was full, the men 
and women seated on the opposite sides of 
the church, and the aged gathered around 


the pulpit. Fritz’s text was Eva’s motto, 
“ God so loved the world." Simply, with 
illustrations such as they could understand, 
he spoke to them of God’s infinite love, and 
the infinite cost at which he had redeemed 
us, and of the love and trust and obedience 
we owe him, and, according to Dr. Luther’s 
advice, he did not speak too long, but 
“ called black black, and white white^ keep¬ 
ing to one simple subject, so that the peo¬ 
ple may go away and say, The sermon was 
about this.'” For, as I heard Dr. Luther 
say, “ We must not speak to the common 
people of high difficult things, or with mys¬ 
terious words. To the church come little 
children, maid-servants, old men and 
women, to whom high doctrine teaches 
nothing. For, if they say about it, ‘ Ah, 
he said excellent things, he has made a fine 
sermon 1’ And one asks, ‘Wliat about, 
then?’ they reply, ‘ I know not.’ Let us 
remember what pains our Lord Christ took 
to preach simply. From the vineyard, from 
the sheepfold, from trees, he drew his illus¬ 
trations, all that the peoj/le might feel and 
understand.” 

That sermon of Fritz’s left a deep rest in 
my heart. He spoke not of justification, 
and redemption merely, but of God redeem¬ 
ing and justifying us. Greater service can 
no one render us than to recall to us what 
God has done for us, and how he really and 
tenderly cares for us. 

In the afternoon, the children were gath¬ 
ered for a little while in the schoolroom^ and 
questioned about the sermon. At sunset 
again we all met for a short service in the 
church, and sang evening hymns in German, 
after which the pastor pronounced the bene¬ 
diction, and the little community scattered 
once more to their various homes. 

With the quiet sunshine, and the light 
shed on the home by Fritz’s return, to-day 
seemed to me almost like a day in Paradise. 

Thank God again and again for Dr. 
Luther, and especially for these two great 
benefits given back to us through him— 
first, that be has unsealed the fountain of 
God’s Word from the icy fetters of the dead 
language, and sent it flowing through the 
land, everywhere wakening winter into 
spring; and secondly, that he has vindica¬ 
ted the sanctity of marriage and the home 
life it constitutes; unsealing the grave¬ 
stones of the convent gates, and sending 
forth the religion entranced and buried 




THEKLA’g STORY. 


m 


there, to bless the world in a thousand \>he old rebellion will come hack. But if it 


lowly, holy, Christian homes such as this. 
THEKLA’S STORY. 

Wittenberg, September , 1527. 

I have said it from my heart at last, yes, 
I am sure I say it from my heart, and if 
with a broken heart, God will not despise 
that. 

“ Our Father which art in heaven, thy 
will, not mine be done.” 

I thought I could bear anything better 
than suspense; but I had no idea what a 
blank of despair the certainty would bring. 

Then came dreadful rebellious thoughts, 
that God should let him die alone ! and then 
recurred to my heart all they had said to me 
about not making idols, and I began to fear 
I had never really loved or worshipped God 
at all, but only Bertrand; and then came a 
longtime of blank and darkness into which 
no light of human or divine love or voices 
of comfort seemed in the least to penetrate. 
I thought God would never receive me until 
1 could say, “Thy will be done,” and this I 
could not say. 

The first words I remember that seemed 
to convey any meaning to me at all, were 
some of Dr. Luther’s in a sermon. He said 
it was easy to believe in God’s pardoning 
love in times of peace, but in times of temp¬ 
tation when the devil assailed the soul with 
all his fiery darts, he himself found it hard, 
indeed, to hold to the truth he knew so 
well, that Christ was not a severe judge, or 
a hard exaeter, but a forgiving Saviour, in¬ 
deed love itself, pure unalterable love. 

Then I began to understand it was the 
devil, the malignant exacting evil spirit that 
I had been listening to in the darkness of 
iny heart, that it was he who had been per¬ 
suading me I must not dare to go to my 
Father, before I could bring him a perfectly 
submissive heart. 

And then I remembered the words, 
“Come unto me, ye that are weary and 
heavy laden;” and, alone in my room, T 
fell on my knees, and cried, “0 blessed 
Saviour, O heavenly Father, I am not sub¬ 
missive; but I am weary, weary and heavy- 
laden; and 1 come to thee. Wilt thou take 
me as I am, and teach me in time to say, 
‘Thy will be done?”’ And he received 
me, and in time he has taught me. At least 


does, 1 will go again to our heavenly Father 
and say again, “ Not submissive yet, only 
heavy laden ! Father, take my hand, and 
say, begin again ! ” 

Because amidst all these happy homes I 
felt so unnecessary to any one, and so un¬ 
utterably lonely. I longed for the old 
convents to bury myself in, away from 
all joyous sounds. But, thank God, they 
were closed for me; and I do not wish for 
them now. 

Dr. Luther began to help me by showing 
me how the devil had been keeping me from 
God. 

And now God has helped me by sending 
through my heart again a glow of thankful¬ 
ness and love. 

The plague has been at Wittenberg again. 
Dr. Luther’s house has been turned into a 
hospital; for dear as are his Kathe and his 
little Hans to him he would not flee from 
the danger, any more than years ago, when 
he was a monk in the convent which is now 
his home. 

And what a blessing his strong and faith¬ 
ful words have been among us, from the 
pulpit, by the dying bed, or in the house of 
mourning. 

But it is through my precious mother that 
God has spoken to my heart, and made me 
feel he does indeed sustain, and care, and 
listen. She was so nearly gone. And now 
she is recovering. They say the danger is 
over. And never more will I say in my 
heart, “To me only God gives no home,” 
or fear to let my heart entwine too closely 
round those God has left me to love, because 
of the anguish when that clasp is severed. 
I will take the joy and the love with all its 
possibilities of sorrow, and trust in God for 
both. 

Perhaps, also, God may have some little 
work of love for me to do, some especial 
service even for me, to make me needed in 
the world as long as I am here. For to-day 
Justus Jonas, who has lost his little son in 
the plague, came to me and said,— 

“Tliekla, come and see my wife. She says 
you can comfort her, for you can compre¬ 
hend sorrow.” 

Of course I went. I do not think I said 
anything to comfort her. I could do little 
else but weep with her, as I looked on the 
little, innocent, placid, lifeless face. But 
when I left her, she said I had done her 


JIlwj uUU X*.* * o _ — -| . • 

1 call say so to-night. To-morrow, perhaps, good, and begged me to come again 





190 


TEE SCHOmERG-COTTA FAMILY. 


So, perhaps, God has some blessed ser¬ 
vices for me to render him, which I could 
only have learned as he has taught me; and 
when we meet hereafter, Bertrand and I, 
and hear that divine and human voice that 
has led us through the world, we together 
shall be glad of all this bitter pain that we 
endured and felt, and give thanks for it 
for ever and for ever f 


XX. 

ELBE’S STORY. 

Wittenberg, May, 1530. 

Op all the happy homes God has given to 
Germany through Dr. Luther, I think none 
are happier than his own. 

The walls of the Augustine eonvent echo 
now with the pattering feet and ringing 
voices of little children, and every night the 
angels watch over the sanctuary of a home, 
The birthdays of Dr. Luther’s children are 
festivals to us all, and more especially the 
birthday of little Hans the first-born was so. 

Yet death also has been in that bright 
home. Their second child, a babe, Eliza¬ 
beth, was early taken from her parents. 
Dr. Luther grieved over her much. A little 
while after her death he wrote to his friend 
Hausmaun:— 

“Grace and peace. My Johannulus thanks 
thee, best Nicholas, for the rattle, in which 
he glories and rejoices wondrously. 

“ I have begun to write something about 
the Turkish war, which will not, I hope, be 
useless. 

“My little daughter is dead; my darling 
little Elizabeth. It is strange how sick and 
wounded she has left my heart, almost as 
tender as a woman’s, such pity moves me for 
that little one. I never could have believed 
before what is the tenderness of a father’s 
heart for his children. Do thou pray to the 
Lord for me, in whom fare-thee-well.” 

Catharine von Bora is honored and be¬ 
loved by all. Some indeed complain of her 
being too economical; but what would be¬ 
come of Dr. Luther and his family if she 
were as reckless in giving as he is ? He has 
been known even to take advantage of her 
illness to bestow his plate on some needy 
student. He never will receive a kreuzer 
from the students he teaches; and he refuses 
to sell his writings, which provokes both 
Gottfried and me, noble as it is of him, be¬ 
cause the great profits they bring would 


surely be better spent by Dr. Luther than 
by the printers who get them now. Our 
belief is, that were it not for Mistress Luther, 
the whole household woidd have long since 
been reduced to beggary, and Dr. Luther, 
who does not scruple to beg of the Elector, 
or of any wealth}^ person for the needs of 
others (although never for his own), knows 
well how precarious such a livelihood is. 

His wife does not, however, always suc¬ 
ceed in restraining his propensities to give 
everything away. Not long ago, in defiance 
of her remonstrating looks, in her presence 
he bestowed on a student who came to him 
asking money to help him home from the 
University, a silver goblet which had been 
presented to him, saying that he had no 
need to drink out of silver. 

We all feel the tender care with which 
she watches over his health, a gift to the 
whole land. His strength has never quite 
recovered the strain on it during those years 
of conflict and penance in the monastery at 
Erfurt. And it is often strained to the ut¬ 
most now. All the monks and nuns who 
have renounced their idle maintenance in 
convents for conscience sake; all congrega¬ 
tions that desire an evangelical pastolr; all 
people of all kinds in trouble of mind, body, 
or estate, turn to Dr, Luther for aid or 
counsel, as to the warmest heart and the 
clearest head in the land. His correspond¬ 
ence is incessant, embracing and answering 
every variety of perplexity, from counsel¬ 
ling evangelical princes how best to reform 
their states, to directions to some humble 
Christian woman how to find peace for her 
conscience in Christ. And besides the 
countless applications to him for advice, his 
large heart seems always at leisure to listen 
to the appeal of the persecuted far and 
near, or to the cry of the bereaved and sor¬ 
rowful. 

Where shall we find the spring of all this 
activity but in the Bible, of which lie says, 
“There are few trees in that garden which 
I have not shaken for fruit;” and in prayer, 
of which he, the busiest man in Christendom 
(as if he were a contemplative hermit), says, 
“Prayer is the Christian’s business (Das 
Gebet ist des Christen Handwerk).” 

Yes, it is the leisure he makes for prayer 
which gives him leisure for all besides. It 
is the hours passed with the life-giving 
Word which make sermons, and correspon¬ 
dence, and teaching of all kinds to him 
simply the out-pouring of a full heart. 




ELSES STORY. 191 


Yet such a life wears out too quickly. 
More than once has Mistress Luther been in 
sore anxiety about him during the four 
years they have been married. 

Once, in 1527, when little Hans was the 
baby, and he believed he should soon have 
to leave her a widow with the fatherless 
little one, he said rather sadly he had noth¬ 
ing to leave her but the silver tankards 
which had been presented to him.” 

“ Dear Doctor,” she replied, “ if it be 
God’s will, then I also choose that you be 
with him rather than with me. It is not so 
much I and my child even that need you as 
the multitude of pious Christians. Trouble 
yourself not about me.” 

What her courageous hopefulness and her 
tender watchfulness have been to him, he 
showed when he said,— 

‘ ‘ I am too apt to expect more from my 
Kathe, and from Melancthon, than I do 
from Christ my Lord. And yet 1 well 
know that neither they nor any one on 
earth has suffered, or can suffer, what he 
hath suffered for me.” 

But although incessant work may weigh 
upon his body, there are severer trials which 
weigh upon his spirit. The heart so quick 
to every touch of affection or pleasure can¬ 
not but be sensitive to injustice or disap¬ 
pointment. It cannot therefore be easy for 
him to bear that at one time it should be 
perilous for him to travel on account of the 
indignation of the nobles, whose relatives 
he has rescued from nunneries; and at 
another time equally unsafe because of the 
indignation of the peasants, for whom, 
though he boldly and openly denounced 
their mad insurrection, he pleads fervently 
with nobles and princes. 

But bitterer than all other things to him, 
are the divisions among evangelical Chris¬ 
tians. Every truth he believes flashes on 
his mind with such overwhelming convic¬ 
tion, that it seems to him nothing but in¬ 
comprehensible wilfulness for any one else 
not to see it. Every conviction he holds, he 
holds with the grasp of one ready to die for 
it—not only with the tenacity of possession, 
but of a soldier to whom its defence has 
been intrusted. He would not, indeed, 
have any put to death or imprisoned for their 
misbelief,. But hold out the hand of fellow¬ 
ship to those who betray any part of his 
Lord’s trust, he thinks,—how dare he ? Are 
a few peaceable days to be purchased at the 
sacrifice of eternal truth ? 


And so the division has taken place be¬ 
tween us and the Swiss. 

My Gretchen perplexed me the other day, 
when we were coming from the city church, 
where Dr. Luther had been preaching 
against the Anabaptists and the Swiss, 
whom he will persist in classing together, 
by saying,— 

“Mother, is not Uncle Winkelried a Swiss, 
and is he not a good man ?” 

“Of course Uncle Conrad is a good man, 
Gretchen,” rejoined our Fritz, who had just 
returned from a visit to Atlantis and Con¬ 
rad. “ How can you ask such questions?” 

“ But he is a Swiss, and Dr. Luther said 
we must take care not to be like the Swiss, 
because they say wicked things about the 
holy sacraments.” 

“ I am sure Uncle Conrad does not say 
wicked things,” retorted Fritz, vehemently. 
“I think he is almost the best man I ever 
saw.” “Mother,” he continued, “why does 
Dr. Luther speak so of the Swiss ?” 

“You see, Fritz,” I said, “Dr. Luther 
never stayed six months among them as you 
did; and so he has never seen how good 
they are at home.” 

“Then,” rejoined Fritz, sturdily, “ if Dr. 
Luther has not seen, I do not think he 
should speak so of them.” 

I was driven to have recourse to maternal 
authority to close the diicussion, reminding 
Fritz that he was a little boy, and could not 
pretend to judge of good and great men 
like Dr. Luther. But, indeed, I could not 
help half agreeing with the child. It was 
impossible to make him understand how 
Dr. Luther has fought his way inch by inch to 
the freedom in which we now stand at ease; 
how he detests the Zwinglian doctrines, 
not so much for themselves, as for what he 
thinks they imply. How will it be possible to 
make our children, who enter on the peace¬ 
ful inheritance so dearly won, understand 
the rough, soldiery vehemence, of the war¬ 
rior race, who reconquered that inheri¬ 
tance for them ? 

As Dr. Luther says, “It is not a little 
thing to change the whole religion and doc¬ 
trine of the papacy. How hard it has been 
to me, they will see in that Day. Now no 
one believes it!” 

God appointed David to fight the wars of 
Israel, and Solomon to build the temple. 
Dr. Luther has had to do both. What 
wonder if the hand of the soldier can some 
times be traced in the work of peace! 







192 THE SC HO NB ERG-COTTA FAMILY. 


Yet, why should I perplex myself about 
this? Soon, too soon, death will come, and 
consecrate the virtues of our generation to 
our children, and throw a softening veil 
over our mistakes. 

Even now that Dr. Luther is absent from 
ns at Coburg, in the castle there, how pre¬ 
cious his letters are; and how doubly sacred 
the words preached to us last Sunday from 
the pulpit, now that to-morrow we are not 
to hear him. 

He is placed in the castle at Coburg, in 
order to be nearer the Diet at Augsburg, so 
as to aid Dr. Melancthon, who is there, 
with his counsel. The Elector dare not 
trust the royal heart and straightforward 
spirit of our Luther among the prudent 
diplomatists at the Diet. 

Mistress Luther is having a portrait taken 
of their little Magdalen, who is now a year 
old, and especially dear to the Doctor, to 
send to him in the fortress. 

June , 1530. 

Letters have arrived from and about Dr. 
Luther. His father is dead—the brave, per¬ 
severing, self-denying truthful old man, 
who had stamped so much of his own char¬ 
acter on his son. “It is meet I should 
mourn such a parent,” Luther writes, “who 
through the sweat of his brow had nurtured 
and educated me, and made me what 1 am.” 
He felt it keenly, especially since he could 
not be with his father at the last; although 
he gives thanks that he lived in these times 
of light, and departed strong in the faith of 
Christ. Dr. Luther’s secretary writes, how¬ 
ever, that the portrait of his little Magda- 
len comforts him much. He has hung it on 
the wall opposite to the place where he sits 
at meal*. 

Dr. Luther is now the eldest of his race. 
He stands in the foremost rank of the 
generations slowly advancing to confront 
death. 

To-day I have been sitting with Mistress 
Luther in the garden behind the Augustei, 
under the shade of the pear-tree, where she 
so often sits beside the Doctor. Our children 
were playing around us—herlittle Hanschen 
with the boys, while the little Magdalen sat 
cooing like a dove over some flowers, which 
she was pulling to pieces, on the grass at our 
feet. 

She talked to me much about the Doctor; 
how dearly he loves the little ones, and 
what lessons of divine love and wisdom he 
learns from their little plays. 


He says often, that beautiful as all God’s 
works are, little children are the fairest of 
all; that the dear angels especially watch 
over them. He is very tender with them, 
and says sometimes they are better theolo¬ 
gians than he is, for they trust Cod. Deeper 
prayers and higher theology he never hopes 
to reach than the first the little ones learn— 
the Lord’s Prayer and the Catechism. 
Often, she said, he says over the Catechism, 
to remind himself of all the treasures of 
faith we possess. 

It is delightful too, she says, to listen to 
the heavenly theology he draws from birds 
and leaves and flowers, and the commonest 
gifts of Cod or events of life. At table, a 
dish of fruit will open to him a whole 
volume of Cod’s bounty, on which he will 
discourse. Or, taking a rose in his hand, he 
will say, “A man who could make one rose 
like this would be accounted most wonder¬ 
ful; and Cod scatters countless such flowers 
around us ! But the very infinity of his 
gifts makes us blind to them.” 

And one evening, he said of a little bird, 
warbling its last little song before it went to 
roost, “Ah, dear little bird ! he has chosen 
his shelter, and is quietly rocking himself to 
sleep, without a care for to-morrow’s lodg¬ 
ing, calmly holding by his little twig, and 
leaving Cod to think for him.” 

In spring he loves to direct her attention 
to the little points and tufts of life peeping 
everywhere from the brown earth or the 
bare branches. “Who,” he said, “that had 
never witnessed a spring-time would have 
guessed, two months since, that these life¬ 
less branches held concealed all that hidden 
power of life ? It will be thus with us at 
the resurrection. Cod writes his gospel, not 
in the Bible alone, but in trees, and flowers, 
and clouds, and stars.” 

And thus to Mistress Luther that little 
garden, with his presence and discourse, 
has* become like an illuminated Cospel and 
Psalter. 

I ventured to ask her some questions, and, 
among others, if she had ever heard him 
speak of using a form of words in prayer. 
She said she had once heard him say “ we 
might use forms of words in private prayer 
until the wings and feathers of our souls are 
grown, that we may soar freely upward into 
the pure air of Cod’s presence.” But his 
prayers, she says, are sometime like the 
trustful pleadings of his little boy Hanschen 




JSLSE'S STORY. 


101 


with him; Mid sometimes like the wrestling 
of a giant in an agony of conflict. 

She said, also, that she often thanks God 
for the Doctor’s love of music. When his 
mind and heart have been strained to the 
utmost, music seems to be like a bath of 
pure fresh water to his spirit, bracing and 
resting it at once. 

I indeed have myself heard him speak of 
this, when I have been present at the meet¬ 
ings he has every week at his house for 
singing in parts. “The devil,” he says— 

“ that lost spirit—cannot endure sacred 
songs of joy. Our passions and impatiences, 
our complainings and our cryings, our Alas! 
and our Woe is me ! please him well; but 
our songs and psalms vex him and grieve 
him sorely.” 

Mistress Luther told me she had many an 
anxious hour about the Doctor’s health. He 
is often so sorely pressed with work and 
care; and he has never recovered the weak¬ 
ening effects of his early fasts and conflicts. 

His tastes and habits at table are very ab¬ 
stemious. His favorite dishes are herrings 
and pea-soup; and when engrossed with 
any especial work, he would forget or go 
without his meals altogether if she did not 
press him to take them. When writing his 
Commentary on the Twenty-second Psalm, 
he shut himself up for three days with noth¬ 
ing but bread and salt; until, at last, she 
had to send for a locksmith to break open 
the door, when they found him absorbed in 
meditation. 

And yet, with all his deep thoughts and 
his wide cares, like a king’s or an archbish¬ 
op’s, he enters into his children’s games as 
if he were a boy; and never fails, if he is 
at a fair on his travels, to bring the little 
ones home some gift for a fairing. 

She showed me a letter she had just re¬ 
ceived from him from Coburg, for his little 
son Hanschen. She allowed me to copy it. 
It was written thus:— 

“Grace and peace in Christ to my heartily 
dear little son. I see gladly that thou 
learnest well and prayest earnestly. Do 
thus, my little son, and go on. When I 
come home I will bring thee a beautiful 
fairing. I know a pleasant garden, wherein 
many children walk about. They have lit¬ 
tle golden coats, and pick up beautiful 
apples under the trees, and pears, cherries 
and plums. They dance and are merry, 
and have also beautiful little ponies, with | 
golden reins and silver saddles. Then I* 


asked the man whose the garden is, whose 
children those were. He said, ‘These are 
the children who love to pray, who learn 
their lessons, and are good.’ Then I said, 
‘Dear man, I also have a little son; he is 
called Hansichen Luther. Might not he also 
come into the garden, that he might eat 
such apples and pears, and ride on such 
beautiful little ponies, and play with these 
children ?’ Then the man said, ‘ If he loves 
to pray, learns his lessons, and is good, he 
also shall come into the garden—Lippusand 
Tost also (the little sons of Melancthon and 
Justus Jonas); and when they all come 
together, they also shall have pipes, drums, 
lutes, and all kinds of music; and shall 
dance, and shoot with little bows and 
arrows.’ 

“And he showed me there a fair meadow 
in the garden, prepared for dancing. There 
were many pipes of pure gold, drums, and 
silver bows and arrows. But it was still 
early in the day, so that the children had 
not had their breakfast. Therefore I could 
not wait for the dancing, and said to the 
man, ‘ Ah, dear sir, I will go away at once, 
and write all this to my little son Hansichen, 
that he may be sure to pray and to learn 
well, and be good, that he also may come 
into this garden. But he has a dear aunt, 
Lena; he must bring her with him.’ Then 
said the man, ‘Let it be so; go and write 
him thus.’ 

“Therefore, my dear little son Hansichen, 
learn thy lessons, and pray with a cheerful 
heart; and tell all this to Lippus and Jus¬ 
tus too, that they also may learn their les¬ 
sons and pray. So shall you all come to¬ 
gether into this garden. Herewith I com¬ 
mend you to the Almighty God; and greet 
Aunt Lena, and give her a kiss from me.— 
Thy dear father. 

Martin Luther.” 

Some who have seen this letter say it is 
too trifling for such serious subjects. But 
heaven is not a grim and austere, but a 
most bright and joyful place; and Dr. 
Luther is only telling the child in his own 
childish language what a happy place it is. 
Does not God our heavenly Father do even 
so with us ? 

I should like to have seen Dr. Luther 
turn from his grave letters to princes and 
doctors about the great Augsburg Confes¬ 
sion, which they are now preparing, to 
write these loving words to his little Hans. 






THE SCHONBEBO-COTTA FAMILY. 


104 

No wonder Catherine Lutherinn, Doctress 
Luther, mea dominus Ketha, “ my lord 
Kathe,” as he calls her, is a happy woman. 
Happy for Germany that the Catechism in 
which our children learn the first elements 
of divine truth, grew out of the fatherly 
heart of Luther, instead of being put to¬ 
gether by a Diet or a General Council. 

^ One more letter I have copied, because 
my children were -so interested in it. Dr. 
Luther finds at all times great delight in 
the songs of birds. The letter I have 
copied was written on the 28th of April, to 
his friends who meet around his table at 
home. 

“ Grace and peace in Christ, dear sirs 
and friends ! I have received all your let¬ 
ters, and understand how things are going 
on with you. That you, on the other hand, 
may understand how things are going on 
here, I would have you know that we, 
namely, I, Master Veit, and Cyriacus, are 
not going to the Diet at Augsburg. We 
have, however, another diet of our own 
here. 

“ Just under our window there is a grove 
like a little forest, where the choughs and 
crows have convened a diet, and there is 
such a riding hither and thither, such an 
incessant tumult, day and night, as if they 
were all merry, and mad with drinking. 
Young and old chatter together, until I 
wonder how their breath can hold out so 
long. I should like to know if any of those 
nobles and cavaliers are with you; it seems 
to me they must be gathered here out of the 
whole world. 

“ I have not yet seen their emperor, but 
their great people are always strutting and 
prancing before our eyes, not, indeed, in 
costly robes, but all simply clad in one uni¬ 
form, all alike black, and all alike grey- 
eyed, all singing one song, only with the 
most amusing varieties between young and 
old, and great and small. They are not 
careful to have a great palace and hall of 
assembly, for their hall is vaulted with the 
beautiful, broad sky, their floor is the field 
strewn with fair, green branches, and their 
walls reach as far as the ends of the world. 
Neither do they require steeds and armor; 
they have feathered wheels with which they 
fly from shot and danger. They are, doubt¬ 
less, great and mighty lords, but what they 
are debating I do not yet know. 

‘ * As far, however, as I understand through 
an interpreter, they are planning a great 


foray and campaign against the wheat, bar¬ 
ley, oats, and all kinds of grain, and many 
a knight will win his spurs in this war, and 
many a brave deed will be done. 

‘ ‘ Thus we sit here in our diet, and hear 
and listen with great delight, and learn how 
the princes and lords, with all the other 
estates of the empire, sing and live so mer¬ 
rily. But our especial pleasure is to see 
how cavalierly they pair about, whet then- 
beaks, and furbish their armor, that they 
may win glory and victory from wheat and 
oats. We wish them health and wealth, 
and that they may all at once be impaled 
on a quickset hedge ! 

“ For I hold they are nothing better than 
sophists and papists with their preaching 
and writing; and I should like to have 
these also before me in our assembly, that 
I might hear their pleasant voices and ser¬ 
mons, and see what a useful people they are 
to devour all that is on the face of the 
earth, and afterwards chatter no one knows 
how long! 

“ To-day we have heard the first night¬ 
ingale, for they would not trust April. We 
have had delightful weather here, no rain, 
except a little yesterday. With you, per¬ 
haps, it is otherwise. Herewith I commend 
you to God. Keep house well. Given 
from the Diet of the grain-Turks, the 28th 
of April, anno 1530. 

“ Martinus Luther." 

Yet, peaceful and at leisure as he seems, 
Gottfried says the whole of Germany is bear¬ 
ing now once more on the strength of that 
faithful heart. 

The Homan diplomatists again and again 
have all but persuaded Melancthon to yield 
everything for peace; and, but for the firm 
and faithful words which issue from “ this 
wilderness,” as Luther calls the Coburg 
fortress, Gottfried believes all might have 
gone wrong. Severely and mournfully has 
Dr. Luther been constrained to write more 
than once to “ Philip Pusillanimity,” de¬ 
manding that at least he should not give up 
the doctrine of justification by faith, and 
abandon all to the decision of bishops! 

“ It is faith which gives Luther this clear¬ 
ness of vision. “It is God’s word and 
cause,” he writes, “ therefore our prayer is 
certainly heard, and already he has deter¬ 
mined and prepared the help that shall help 
us. This cannot fail. For he says, ; Can a 
woman forget her sucking child, that she 





THEKLA'S STORY. 


185 


should not have compassion on the son of 
her womb ? yea, they may forget, yet will 
I not forget thee. See, I have graven thee 
on the palms of my hands.' I have lately 
seen two miracles,” he continues; “the 
first, as I was looking out of my window 
and saw the stars in heaven , and all that 
beautiful vaulted roof of God, and yet saw 
no pillars on which the Master Builder had 
fixed this vault; yet the heaven fell not, 
but all that grand arch stood firm. Now 
there are some who search for such pillars, 
and want to touch and grasp them, and 
since they cannot, they wonder and tremble 
as if the heaven must certainly fall, for no 
other reason but because they cannot touch 
and grasp its pillars. If they could lay 
hold on those, think they, then the heaven 
would stand firm! 

“ The second miracle was—I saw great 
clouds rolling over us, with such a ponder¬ 
ous weight that they might be compared to 
a great ocean, and yet I saw no foundation 
on which they rested or were based, nor 
any shore which kept them back; yet they 
fell not on us, but frowned on us with a 
stern countenance and fled. But when they 
had passed by, then shone forth both their 
foundation and our roof which had kept 
them back—ths> rainbow! Yet that was 
indeed a weak, thin, slight foundation and 
roof, which soon melted away into the 
clouds, and was more like a shadowy prism, 
such as we see through colored glass, than 
a strong and firm foundation; so that we 
might well distrust that feeble dyke which 
kept back that terrible weight of waters. 
Yet we found, in fact, that this unsubstan¬ 
tial prism could bear up the weight of 
waters, and that it guards us safely. But 
there are some who look rather at the thick¬ 
ness and massy weight of the waters and 
clouds, than at this thin, slight, narrow bow 
of promise. They would like to feel the 
strength of that shadowy, evanescent arch, 
and because they cannot do this, they are 
ever fearing that the clouds will bring back 
the deluge.” 

Heavenly Father, since one man who 
trusts thy word can thus uphold a nation, 
what could not thy word do for each of us 
if we would each of us thus trust it, and 
thee who speakest it! 

THEKLA’S STORY. 

Wittenberg, 1540. 

The time I used to dread most of all in 


my life, after that great bereavement which 
laid it waste, is come. I am in the monot¬ 
onous level of solitary middle age. The 
sunny homes of childhood, and even the 
joyous, breezy slopes of youth, are almost 
out of sight behind me; and the snowy 
heights of reverend age, from which we 
can look overinto the promised land beyond, 
are almost as far before me. Other lives 
have grown from the bubbling spring into 
the broad and placid river, while mine is 
still the little narrow stream it was at first, 
only creeping slow and noiseless through 
the flats, instead of springing gladly from 
rock to rock, making music wherever it 
came. Yet I am content, absolutely, fully 
content. I am sure that my life also has 
been ordered by the highest wisdom and 
love, and that (as far as my faithless heart 
does not hinder it) God is leading me also 
on to the very highest and best destiny for 
me, 

I did not always think so. I used to fear 
that not only would this bereavement throw 
a shadow on my earthly life, but that it 
would stunt and enfeeble my nature for 
ever; that missing all the sweet, ennobling 
relationships of married life, even through 
the ages I should be but an undeveloped, 
one-sided creature. 

But one day I was reading in Dr. 
Luther’s German Bible the chapter about 
the body of Christ, the twelfth of First 
Corinthians, the great comfort came into 
my heart through it. I saw that we are 
not meant to be separate atoms, each com¬ 
plete in itself, but members of a body, each 
only complete through union with all the 
rest. And then I saw how entirely unim¬ 
portant it is in what place Christ shall set 
me in his body; and how impossible it is 
for us to judge what he is training us for, 
until the body is perfected and we see what 
we are to be in it. 

On the Diiben Heath also, soon after, 
when I was walking home with Els.e’s 
Gretclien, the same lesson came to me in a 
parable, through a clump of trees under the 
shade of which we were resting. Often, 
from a distance, we had admired the beau¬ 
tiful symmetry of the group, and now 
looking up I saw how imperfect every sep¬ 
arate tree was, all leaning in various direc¬ 
tions, and all only developed on one side. 
If each tree had said, “ I am a beech-tree, 
and 1 ought to throw out branches on every 
side, like my brother standing alone on the 






196 


TEE SC HONE ERG-COTTA FAMILY. 


heath,” what would have become of that 
beautiful clump ? And looking up through 
the green interwoven leaves to the blue 
sky, I said,— 

“Heavely Father, thou art wise 1 I will 
doubt no more. Plant me where thou wilt 
in thy garden, and let me grow as thou 
wilt! Thou wilt not let me fail of my 
highest end.” 

Dr. Luther also said many things which 
helped me from time to time, in conversa¬ 
tion or in his sermons. 

“The barley,” he said, “must suffer 
much from man. First, it is cast into the 
earth that it may decay. Then, when it is 
grown up and ripe it is cut and mown 
down. Then it is crushed and pressed, 
fermented and brewed into beer. 

“ Just such a martyr also is the linen or 
flax. When it is ripe it is plucked, steeped 
in water, beaten, dried, hacked, spun, and 
woven into linen, which again is torn and 
cut. Afterwards it is made into plaster for 
sores, and used for binding up wounds. 
Then it becomes lint, is laid under the 
stamping machines in the paper mill, and 
torn into small bits. From this they make 
paper for writing and printing. 

“These creatures, and many others like 
them, which are of great use to us, must 
thus suffer. Thus also must good, godly 
Christians suffer much from the ungodly 
and wicked. Thus, however, the barley, 
wine and corn are ennobled, in man be¬ 
coming flesh, and in the Christian man’s 
flesh entering into the heavenly kingdom.” 

Often he speaks of the “ dear, holy cross, 
a portion of which is given to all Christ¬ 
ians.” 

“ All the saints,” he said once, when a 
little child of one of his friends lay ill, ‘ must 
drink of the bitter cup. Could Mary even, 
the dear mother of our Lord, escape ? All 
who are dear to him must suffer. Christ¬ 
ians conquer when they suffer; only when 
they rebel and resist are they defeated and 
lose the day.” 

He indeed knows what trial and tempta¬ 
tion mean. Many a bitter cup has he had 
to drink, he to whom the sins, and selfish¬ 
ness, and divisions of Christians are per¬ 
sonal sorrow and shame. It is, therefore, 
no doubt, that he knows so well how to 
sustain and comfort. Those, he says, who 
are to be the bones and sinews of the 
Church may expect the hardest blows. 

Well I remember his saying, when, on 


the 8th of August, 1529, before his going 
to Coburg, he and his wife la3 r sick of a 
fever, while he suffered also from sciatica, 
and many other ailments,— 

“God has touched me sorely. I have 
been impatient; but God knows better than 
1 whereto it serves. Our Lord Ood is like 
a printer who sets the letters backwards, so 
that here we cannot read them . When we 
are printed off yonder, in the life to come, 
we shall read all clear and straight¬ 
forward. Meantime we must have pa¬ 
tience.” 

In other ways more than I can number 
he and his words have helped me. No one 
seems to understand as he does what the 
devil is and does. It is the temptation in 
the sorrow which is the thing to be dreaded 
and guarded against. This was what I did 
not understand at first when Bertrand died, 
I thought I was rebellious, and dared not 
approach God till 1 ceased to feel rebel¬ 
lious. I did not understand that the ma¬ 
lignant one who tempted me to rebel also 
tempted me to think God would not for¬ 
give. I had thought before of affliction as 
a kind of sanctuary where naturally I 
should feel God near. ] had to learn that 
it is also night-time, even “ the hour 
of darkness,” in which the prince of dark¬ 
ness draws near unseen. As Luther say, 
“ The devil torments us in the place where 
we are most tender and weak, as in para¬ 
dise he fell not on Adam, but on Eve.” 

Inexpressible was the relief to me when 
I learned who had been tormenting me, 
and turned to Him who vanquished the 
tempter of old to banish him now from me. 
For terrible as Dr. Luther knows that fallen 
angel to be,—“ the antithesis,” as he said, 
“of the Ten Commandments,” who for 
thousands of years has been studying with 
an angel’s intellectual power, “ how most 
effectual^ to distress and ruin man,”—he 
always reminds us that, nevertheless, the 
devil is a vanquished foe, that the victory 
has not now to be won; that, bold as the 
evil one is to assail and tempt the unguard¬ 
ed, a word or look of faith will compel him 
to flee “like a beaten hound.” It is this 
blending of the sense of Satan’s power to 
tempt, with the conviction of his powerless- 
ness to injure the believing heart, which 
has so often sustained me in Dr. Luther’s 
words. 

But it is not only thus that he has helped 
me. He presses on us often the necessity 



THEKLA'S STORY. 


197 


of occupation. It is better, he says, to en¬ 
gage in the humblest work, than to sit still 
alone and encounter the temptations of 
Satan. “ Oft in my temptations 1 have 
need to talk even with a child, in order to 
expel such thoughts as the devil possesses 
me with; and this teaches me not to boast 
as if of myself I were able to help myself, 
and to subsist without the strength of 
Christ. I need one at times to help me 
who in his whole body has not as much 
theology as 1 have in one finger.” “The 
human heart,” he says, “ is like a mill¬ 
stone in a mill: when you put wheat 
under it, it turns, and grinds, and bruises 
the wheat to flour; if you put no wheat it 
still grinds on, but then it is itself it grinds 
and wears away. So the human heart un¬ 
less it be occupied with some employment, 
leaves space for the devil, who wriggles 
himself in, and brings with him a whole 
host of evil thoughts, temptations, tribula¬ 
tions, which grind away the heart.” 

After hearing him say this, I tried hard 
to find myself some occupation. At first it 
seemed difficult. Else wanted little help 
with her children, or only occasionally. 
At home the cares of poverty were over, 
and my dear father and mother lived in 
comfort, without my aid. I used discon¬ 
tentedly to wish sometimes that we were 
poor again, as in Else’s girlish days, that I 
might be needed, and really feel it of some 
use to spin and embroider, instead of feel¬ 
ing that I only worked for the sake of not 
being idle, and that no one would be the 
better for what I did. 

At other times I used to long to seclude 
myself from all the happy life around, and 
half to reproach Dr. Luther in my heart for 
causing the suppression of the convents. 
In a nunnery, at least, I thought I should 
have been something definite and recog¬ 
nized, instead of the negative, undeveloped 
creature I felt myself to be, only distin¬ 
guished from those around by the absence 
j of what made their lives real and happy. 

My mother’s recovery from the plague 
helped to cure me of that, by reminding 
me of the home blessings still left. I be- 

I gan, too, to confide once more in God, and 
I was comforted by thinking of what my 
grandmother said to me one day when I 
was a little girl, crying hopelessly over a 
tangled skein and sobbing, “ I shall never 
1 untangle it; ” “ Wind, dear child, wind on, 
inch by inch, undo each knot one by one, 


and the skein will soon disentangle itself.” 
So I resolved to wind on my little thread of 
life day by day, and undo one little knot 
after another, until now, indeed, the skein 
has untangled itself. 

Few women, I think, have a life more 
full of love and interest than mine. I have 
undertaken the care of a school for little 
girls, among whom are two orphans, made 
fatherless by the peasants’ war, who were 
sent to us; and this also I owe to Dr. 
Luther. He has nothing more at heart 
than the education of the young; and noth¬ 
ing gives him more pain than to see the 
covetousness which grudges funds for 
schools; and nothing more joy than to see 
the little ones grow up in all good knowl¬ 
edge. As he wrote to the Elector John 
from Coburg twelve years ago:— 

“ The merciful God shows himself indeed 
gracious in making his Word so fruitful in 
your land. The tender little boys and 
maidens are so well instructed in the Cate¬ 
chism and Scriptures, that my heart melts 
when I see that young boys and girls can 
pray, believe, and speak better of God and 
Christ than all the convents and schools 
could in the olden time. 

“Such youth in your grace’s land are a 
fair paradise, of which the like is not in the 
world. It is as if God said, ‘ Courage, dear 
Duke John, I commit to thee my noblest 
treasure, my pleasant paradise; thou shalt 
be father over it. For under thy guard and 
rule I place it, and give thee the honor that 
thou shalt be my gardener and steward.’ 
This is assuredly true. It is even as if our 
Lord himself were your grace’s guest and 
ward, since his Word and his little ones are 
your perpetual guests and wards.” 

For a little while a lady, a friend of his 
wife, resided in his house in order to com¬ 
mence such a school at Wittenberg for 
young girls; and now it has become my 
charge. And often Dr. Luther comes in 
and lays his hands on the heads of the little 
ones, and asks God to bless them, or listens 
while they repeat the Catechism or the Holy 
Scriptures. 

December 25 , 1542 . 

Once more the Christmas tree has been 
planted in our homes at Wittenberg. How 
many such happy Christian homes there 
are among us ! Our Else’s, Justus Jonas’, 
and his gentle, sympathizing wife, who, 
Dr. Luther says, “ always brings comfort 
in her kind, pleasant countenance.” We 





198 


TEE SCHONBERG-COTTA FAMILY. 


all meet at Else’s home on such occasions 
now. The voices of the children are better 
than light to the blind eyes of my father, 
and my mother renews her own maternal 
joys again in her grandchildren, without 
the cares. 

But of all these homes none is happier or 
more united than Dr. Luther’s. His child¬ 
like pleasure in little things makes every 
family festival in his house so joyous; and 
the children’s plays and pleasures, as well 
as their little troubles, are to him a perpet¬ 
ual parable of the heavenly family, and of 
our relationship to God. There are live 
children in his family now; Hans, the first¬ 
born; Magdalen, a lovely, loving girl of 
thirteen; Faul, Martin, and Margaretha. 

How happy it is for those who are be¬ 
reaved and sorrowful that our Christian fes¬ 
tivals point forward and upward as well as 
backward; that the eternal joy to which we 
are drawing ever nearer is linked to the 
earthly joy which has passed away. Yes, 
the old heathen tree of life, which that 
young green fir from the primeval forests 
of our land is said to typify, has been chris¬ 
tened into the Christmas tree. The old tree 
of life was a tree of sorrow, and had its 
roots in the evanescent earth, and at its base 
sat the mournful Destinies, ready to cut the 
thread of human life. Nature ever renewing 
herself contrasts with the human life that 
blooms but once. But our tree of life is a 
tree of joy, and is rooted in the eternal 
paradise of joy. The angels watch over it, 
and it recalls the birth of the second man— 
the Lord from heaven—who is the life-giv¬ 
ing spirit. In it the evanescence of Nature, 
immortal as she seems, is contrasted with 
the true eternal life of mortal man. In the 
joy of the little ones, once more, thank 
God, my whole heart seems to rejoice; for 
I also have my face towards the dawn, and 
I can hear the fountain of life bubbling up 
whichever way 1 turn. Only, before me it 
is best and freshest, for it is springing up 
to life everlasting. 

December , 1542 . 

A shadow has fallen on the peaceful 
home of Dr. Luther: Magdalen, the unsel¬ 
fish, obedient, pious loving child—the dar¬ 
ling of her father’s heart—is dead, the first¬ 
born daughter, whose likeness, when she 
was a year old, used to cheer and delight 
him at Coburg. 

On /‘he 5th of this last September she 
was taken ill, and Luther wrote at once to 


his friend Marcus Crotlel to send his son 
John from Torgau, where he was studying, 
to see his sister. He wrote,— 

“ Grace and peace, my Marcus Crodel. 
I request that you will conceal from my 
John what I am writing to you. My daugh¬ 
ter Magdalen is literally almost at the point 
of death—soon about to depart to her Father 
in heaven, unless it should yet seem fit 
to God to spare her. But she herself so 
sighs to see her brother, that I am con¬ 
strained to send a carriage to fetch him. 
They indeed loved one another greatly. 
May she survive to his coming! I do what 
I can, lest afterwards the sense of having 
neglected anything should torment me. 
Desire him, therefore, without mentioning 
the cause, to return hither at once with all 
speed in this carriage; hither,—where she 
will either sleep in the Lord or be restored. 
Farewell in the Lord.” 

Her brother came, but she was not re¬ 
stored. 

As she lay very ill, Dr. Martin said,— 

“ She is very dear to me; but, gracious 
God, if it is thy will to take her hence, I 
am content to know that she will be with 
thee.” 

As she lay in the bed, he said to her,— 

“ Magdalenchen, my little daughter, thou 
wouldst like to stay with thy father: and 
thou art content also to go to thy Father 
yonder.” 

Said she, “ Yes, dearest father; as God 
wills.” 

Then said the father,— 

“ Thou darling child, the spirit is willing, 
but the flesh is weak.” 

Then he turned away and said,— 

“She is very dear to me. If the flesh is 
so strong, what will the spirit be ?” 

And among other things he said,— 

“ For a thousand years God has given no 
bishop such great gifts as he has given me; 
and we should rejoice in his gifts. I am 
angry with myself that I cannot rejoice in 
my heart over her, nor give thanks; although 
now and then I can sing a little song to our 
God, and thank him a little for all this. But 
let us take courage; living or dying, we are 
the Lord’s. ‘ Sive vivimus, sive moremur, 
Domini sumus,’ This is true, whether we 
take ‘Domini’ in the nominative or the 
genitive; we are the Lord’s, and in him we 
are lords over death and life.” 

Then said Master George Borer,— 

“I once heard your reverence say a thing 



199 


THEKLA ’3 STORY. 


which often comforts me,—namely, ‘I have 
prayed our Lord God that he will give me a 
happy departure when I journey hence. 
And he will do it; of that I feel sure. At 
my latter end 1 shall yet speak with Christ 
my Lord, were it for ever so brief a space.’ 
I fear sometimes,” continued Master Rorer, 
“that I shall depart hence suddenly, in 
silence, without beingable to speak a word.” 

Then said Dr. Martin Luther,— 

“Living or dying, we are the Lord’s. It 
is equally so whether you were killed by 
falling down stairs, or were sitting and 
writing, and suddenly should die. It would 
not injure me if I fell from a ladder and lay 
dead at its foot; for the devil hates us 
grievously, and might even bring about such 
a thing as that.” 

When, at last, the little Magdalen lay at 
the point of death, her father fell on his 
Knees by her bed-side, wept bitterly, and 
prayed that God would receive her. Then 
she departed, and fell asleep in her father’s 
arms. Her mother was also in the room, 
but further off, on account of her grief. 
This happened a little after nine o’clock on 
the Wednesday after the 19th Sunday after 
Trinity, 1542. 

The Doctor repeated often, as before 
said,— 

“I would desire indeed to keep my 
daughter, if our Lord God would leave her 
with me; for I love her very dearly. But 
his will be done; for nothing can be better 
than that for her.” 

Whilst she still lived, he said to her,— 

“ Dear daughter, thou hast also a Father 
in heaven, thou art going to him.” 

Then said Master Philip,— 

“ The love of parents is an image and 
illustration of the love of God, engraven on 
the human heart. If, then, the love of God 
to the human race is as great as that of 
parents to their children, it is indeed great 
and fervent.” 

When she was laid in the coffin, Doctor 
Martin said,— 

“Thou darling Lenichen, how well it is 
with thee 1 ” 

And as he gazed on her lying there, he 
said,— 

“Ah, thou sweet Lenichen, thou shalt 
rise again, and shine like a star; yes, like 
the sun 1” 

They had made the coffin too narrow and 
too short, and he said,— 

“The bed is too small for thee! lain 


indeed joyful in spirit, but after the flesh I 
am very sad; this parting is so beyond mea¬ 
sure trying. Wonderful it is that I should 
know she is certainly at peace, and that all 
is well with her, and yet should be so sad.” 

And when the people who came to lay 
out the corpse according to custom, spoke 
to the Doctor, and said they were sorry for 
his affliction, he said,— 

“You should rejoice. I have sent a saint 
to heaven; yes, a living saint! May we have 
such a death ! Such a death I would gladly 
die this very hour.” 

Then said one, “ That is true indeed; yet 
every one would wish to keep his own.” 

Doctor Martin answered,— 

“Flesh is flesh, and blood is blood. I am 
glad that she is yonder. There is no sorrow 
but that of the flesh.” 

To others who came he said,— 

“ Grieve not. I have sent a saint to 
heaven; yes, I have sent two such thither!” 
alluding to his infant, Elizabeth. 

As they were chanting by the corpse, 
“ Lord, remember not our former sins, 
which are of old,” he said,— 

“I say, 0 Lord, not our former sins only; 
nor only those of old, but our present sins; 
for we are usurers, exactors, misers. Yea, 
the abomination of the Mass is still in the 
world! ’ ’ 

When the coffin was closed, and she was 
buried, he said, “There is indeed a resur¬ 
rection of the body.” 

And as they returned from the funeral, 
he said,— 

“My daughter is now provided for in body 
and soul. We Christians have nothing to 
complain of; we know it must be so. We 
are more certain of eternal life than of any¬ 
thing else; for God who has promised it to 
us for his dear Son’s sake, can never lie. 
Two saints of my flesh our Lord God has 
taken, but not of my blood. Flesh and 
blood cannot inherit the kingdom.” 

Among other things, he said,— 

“We must take great care for our chil¬ 
dren, and especially for the poor little 
maidens; we must not leave it to others to 
care for them. I have no compassion on the 
boys. A lad can maintain himself wherever 
he is, if he vvill only work; and if he will 
not work, he is a scoundrel. But the poor 
maiden-kind must have a staff to lean on.” 

And again,— 

“I gave this daughter very willingly to 
our God. After the flesh, I would indeed 




200 


THE 8CH0NB ERG-COTTA FAMILY . 


have wished to keep her longer with me; 
but since he has taken her hence, I thank 
him.” 

The night before Magdalen Luther died, 
her mother had a dream, in which she saw 
two men clothed in fair raiment, beautiful 
and young, come and lead her daughter 
away to her bridal. When, on the next 
morning, Philip Melancthon came into the 
cloister, and asked her how her daughter 
was, she told him her dream. 

But he was alarmed at it, and said to 
others,— 

“Those young men are the dear angels 
who will come and lead this maiden into the 
kingdom of heaven, to the true Bridal.” 

And the same day she died. 

Some little time after her death, Dr. Mar¬ 
tin Luther said,— 

“ If my daughter Magdalen could come 
to life again, and bring with her to me the 
Turkish kingdom, I would not have it. Oh, 
she is well cared for: ‘ Beati mortui qui in 
Domino moriuntur.’ Who dies thus, cer¬ 
tainly has eternal life. I would that I, and 
my children, and ye all could thus depart; 
for evil days are coming. There is neither 
help nor counsel more on earth, I see, until 
the Judgment Day. I hope, if God will, it 
will not be long delayed; for covetousness 
and usury increase.” 

And often at supper he repeated, “Et 
multipicata summala in terris.” 

He himself made this epitaph, and had 
it placed on his Magdalen’s tomb:— 

“Dormio cum sanctis hie Magdalena Lutheri 
Filia, at hoc strato tecta quiesco meo. 

Filia mortis eram, peccati semine nata, 
Sanguine sed vivo, Christs, redempta tuo.”* 

*“ A friend has translated it thus :— 

I Luther’s daughter Magdalen, 

Here slumber with the blest; 

Upon this bed I lay my head, 

And take my quiet rest. 

I was a child of death on earth, 

In sin my life was given; 

But on the tree Christ died for me, 

And now I live in heaven. 

In German,— 

“Heresleep I Lenichen, Dr. Luther’s little daughter, 

Rest with all the saints in my little bed; 

I who was born in sins, 

And must for ever have been lost. 

But now I live, aud all is well with me, 

Lord Christ, redeemed with thy blood.” 

Yet, indeed, although he tries to cheer 


others, he laments long and deeply himself 
as many of his letters show. 

To Jonas he wrote,— 

1 think you will have heard that my 
dearest daughter Magdalen is born again to 
the eternal kingdom of Christ. But although 
I and my wife ought to do nothing but give 
thanks, rejoicing in so happy and blessed a 
departure, by which she has escaped the 
power of the flesh, the world, the Turk, and 
the devil; yet such is the strength of natural 
affection, that we cannot part with her with¬ 
out sobs and groans of heart. They cleave 
to our heart, they remain fixed in its depths 
—her face, her words—the looks, living and 
dying, of that most dutiful and obedient 
child; so that even the death of Christ (and 
what are all deaths in comparison with 
that?) scarcely can efface her death from 
our minds. Do thou, therefore, give thanks 
to God in our stead. Wonder at the great 
work of God who thus glorifies flesh! She 
was, as thou knowest, gentle and sweet in 
disposition, and was altogether lovely. 
Blessed be the Lord Jesus Christ, wlie 
called and chose, and has thus magnified 
her ! 1 wish for myself and all mine, that 

we may attain to such a death; yea, rather, 
to such a life, which only I ask from God, 
the Father of all consolation and mercy.” 

And again, to Jacob Probst, pastor at 
Bremen,— 

“ My most dear child, Magdalen, has de¬ 
parted to her heavenly Father, falling asleep 
full of faith in Christ. An indignant norror 
against death softens my tears. I loved her 
vehemently. But in that day we shall be 
avenged on death, and on him who is the 
author of death.” 

And to Arnsdorf,— 

“ Thanks to thee for endeavoring to con¬ 
sole me on the death of my dearest daugh¬ 
ter. I loved her not only for that she was 
my flesh, but for her most placid and gentle 
spirit, ever so dutiful to me. But now I 
rejoice that she is gone to live with her 
heavenly Father, and is fallen into sweetest 
sleep until that day. For the times are and 
will be worse and worse; and in my heart 
I pray that to thee, and to all dear to me, 
may be given such an hour of departure, 
and with such placid quiet, truly to fall 
asleep in the Lord. ‘ The just are gathered , 
and rest in their beds.' ‘ For verily the world 
is as a horrible Sodom.’ ” 

And to Lauterbach,— 

“ Thou writest well, that in this most evil 



THEKLA'S STORY. 


201 


age death (or more truly, sleep) is to be 
desired by all. And although the departure 
of that most dear child has, indeed, no little 
moved me, yet I rejoice more that she, a 
daughter of the kingdom, is snatched from 
the jaws of the devil and the world; so 
sweetly did she fall asleep in Christ.” 

So mournfully and tenderly he writes and 
speaks, the shadow of that sorrow at the 
centre of his life overspreading the whole 
world with darkness to him. Or rather, as 
he would say, the joy of that loving, dutiful 
child’s presence being withdrawn, he looks 
out from his cold and darkened hearth, and 
sees the world as it is; the covetousness of 
the rich; the just demands, yet insurrection¬ 
ary attempts of the poor; the war with the 
Turks without, the strife in the empire 
within; the fierce animosities of impend¬ 
ing religious war; the lukewarmness and 
divisions among his friends. For many 
years God gave that feeling heart a 
refuge from all these in the bright, 
unbroken circle of his home. But now 
the next look to him seems beyond this 
life; to death which unveils, or to the 
kingdom of truth and righteousness, and 
love, to each, one by one; or still more, to 
the glorious Advent which will manifest it 
to all. Of this he delights to speak. The 
end of the world, he feels sure, is near; and 
he says all preachers should tell their people 
to pray for its coming, as the beginning of 
the golden age. He said once—“ 0 gracious 
God, como soon again ! I am waiting ever 
for the day—the spring morning, when day 
and night are equal, and the clear, bright 
rose of that dawn shall appear. From that 
glow of morning I imagine a thick, black 
cloud will issue, forked with lightning, and 
then a crash, and heaven and earth will 
fall. Praise be to God, who has taught us 
to long and look for that day. In the pa¬ 
pacy they sing,— 

4 Dies ir® dies illa;’_ 

but we look forward to it with hope; and I 
trust it is not far distant.” 

Yet he is no dreamer, listlessly clasping 
his hands in the night, and watching for 
the dawn. He is of the day, a child of the 
light; and calmly, and often cheerfully, he 
pursues his life of ceaseless toil for others, 
considerately attending to the wants and 
pleasures of all, from the least to the great¬ 
est; affectionately desirous to part with his 
plate, rather than not give a generous re¬ 


ward to a faithful old servant, who was 
retiring from his service; pleading the cause 
of the helpless; writing letters of consola¬ 
tion to the humblest who need his aid; car¬ 
ing for all the churches, yet steadily dis¬ 
ciplining his children when they need it, or 
ready to enter into any scheme for their 
pleasure. 

Wittenberg, 1545. 

It seems as if Dr. Luther were as neces¬ 
sary to us now as when he gave the first 
impulse to better things, by affixing his 
thesis to the doors of Wittenberg, or when 
the eyes of the nation centred on him at 
Worms. In his quiet home he sits and 
holds the threads which guide so many 
lives, and the destinies of so many lands. 
He has been often ailing lately, and some¬ 
times very seriously. The selfish luxury of 
the rich burghers and nobles troubles him 
much. He almost forced his way one day 
into the Elector’s cabinet, to press on him 
the appropriation of some of the confiscated 
church revenues to the payment of pastors 
and schoolmasters; and earnestly, again 
and again, from the pulpit, does he de¬ 
nounce covetousness. 

“ All other vices,” he says, “ bring their 
pleasures; but the wretched avaricious man 
is the slave of his goods, not their master; 
he enjoys neither this world nor the next. 
Here he has purgatory, and there hell; 
while faith and content bring rest,to the 
soul here, and afterwards bring the soul to 
heaven. For the avaricious lack what they 
have, as well as what they have not.” 

Never was a heart more free from selfish 
interests and aims than his. His faith is 
always seeing the invisible God; and to 
him it seems the most melancholy folly, as 
well as sin, that people should build their 
nests in this forest, on all whose trees he 
sees the forester’s mark of destruction. 

The tone of his preaching has often lately 
been reproachful and sad. 

Else’sGretchen, now a thoughtful maiden 
of three-and-twenty, said to me the other 
day— 

“Aunt Thekla, why does Dr. Luther 
preach sometimes as if his preaching had 
done no good ? Have not many of the evil 
things he attacked been removed? Is not 
the Bible in every home ? Our mother says 
we cannot be too thankful for living in these 
times, when we are taught the truth about 
God, and are given a religion of trust and 
love, instead of one of distrust and dread. 




202 THE SCHONBERG-COTTA FAMILY. 


Why does Dr. Luther often speak as if 
nothing-had been done?” 

And I could only say— 

“We see what has been done; but Dr. 
Luther only knows what he hoped to do. 
He said one day—‘ If 1 had known at first 
that men were so hostile to the word of 
God, I should have held my peace. 1 
imagined that they sinned merely through 
ignorance.' ’’ 

“ I suppose, Gretclien,” I said, “ that he 
had before him the vision of the whole of 
Christendom flocking to adore and serve his 
Lord, when once he had shown him how 
good he is. We see what Dr. Luther has 
done. He sees what he hoped, and con¬ 
trasts it with what is left undone.’’ 

THE MOTHER’S STORY. 

I do not think there is another old man 
and woman in Christendom who ought to 
be so thankful as my husband and I. 

No doubt all parents are inclined to look 
at the best side of their own children; but 
with ours there is really no other side to 
look at, it seems to me. Perhaps Else has 
sometimes a little too much of my anxious 
mind; but even in her tender heart, as in 
all others, there is a large measure of her 
father’s hopefulness. And then, although 
they have, perhaps, none of them quite his 
inventive genius, yet that seems hardly a 
matter of regret; because, as things go in 
the world, other people seem so often, at 
the very goal, to step in and reap the fruit 
of these inventions, just by adding some 
insignificent detail which makes the inven¬ 
tion work, and gives them the appearance 
of having been the real discoverers. 

Not that I mean to murmur for one in¬ 
stant against the people who have this little 
knack of just putting the finishing touch 
making things succeed, that also, as the 
house father says, is God’s gift, and al¬ 
though it cannot certainly be compared to 
those great, lofty thoughts and plans of my 
husband’s, it has more current value in the 
world. Not, again, that I would for an 
instant murmur at the world. We have all 
so much more in it than we deserve (except, 
perhaps, my dearest husband, who cares so 
little for its rewards!) It has been quite 
wonderful how good every one has been to 
us. Gottfried Reichenbach, and all our 
sons-in-law, are like sons to us; and cer¬ 
tainly could not have prized our daughters 


more if they had had the dowry of prin¬ 
cesses; although I must candidly say I 
think our dear daughters without a kreutzer 
of dowry are worth a fortune to any man, 

I often wonder how it is they are such 
house-wives, and so sensible and wise in 
every way, when I never considered myself 
at all a first-rate manager. To be sure 
their father’s conversation was always very 
improving; and my dear blessed mother 
was a storehouse of wisdom and experi¬ 
ence. However, there is no accounting for 
these things. God is wonderfully good in 
blessing the humblest efforts to train up the 
little ones for him. We often think the 
poverty of their early years was quite a 
school of patience and household virtues for 
them all. Even Christopher and Thekla, 
who caused us more, anxiety at first than 
the others, are the very stay and joy of our 
old age; which shows how little we can 
foresee what good things God is preparing 
for us. 

How I used at one time to tremble for 
them both ! It shocked Else and me so 
grievously to see Christopher, as we 
thought, quite turning his back on religion, 
after Fritz became a monk; and what a 
relief it was to see him find in Dr. Luther’s 
sermons and in the Bible the truth which 
bowed his heart in reverence, yet left his 
character free to develop itself without being 
compressed into a mould made for other 
characters. What a relief it was to hear 
that he turned, not from religion, but from 
what was false in the religion then taught, 
and to see him devoting himself to his 
calling as a printer with a feeling as sacred 
as Fritz to his work as a pastor ! 

Then our Thekla, how anxious I was 
about her at one time ! how eager to take 
her training out of God’s hands into my 
own, which I thought, in my ignorance, 
might spare her fervent, enthusiastic, loving 
heart some pain. 

I wanted to tame down and moderate 
everything in her by tender warnings and 
wise precepts. 1 wanted her to love less 
vehemently, to rejoice with more limitation, 
to grieve more moderately. I tried hard to 
compress her character into a narrower 
mould. But God would not have it so. I 
can see it all now. She was to love and re¬ 
joice, and then to weep and lament, accord¬ 
ing to the full measure of her heart, that 
in the heights »nk 1 depths to which God led 
her, she might learn what she was to learn 







THE MOTHER'S STORY. 


of the heights and depths of the love which 
extends beyond all joy and below all sor¬ 
row. Her character, instead of becoming 
dwarfed and stunted, as my ignorant hand 
might have made it, was to be thus braced, 
and strengthened, and rooted, that others 
might find shelter beneath her sympathy 
and love, and so many do now. I would 
have weakened in order to soften; God’s 
providence has strengthened and expanded 
while softening, and made her strong to en¬ 
dure any pity as well ao strong to feel. 

No one can say what she is to us, the one 
left entirely to us, to whom we are still the 
nearest and the dearest, who binds our 
years together by the unbroken memory of 
her tender care, and makes us young in her 
childlike love, and brings into our failing 
life the activity and interest of mature age 
by her own life of active benevolence. 

Else and her household are the delight of 
our daily life; Eva and Fritz are our most 
precious and consecrated treasures, and all 
the rest are good and dear as children can 
be; but to all the rest we are the grand¬ 
mother and the grandfather. To Thekla we 
are “ father” and “ mother ” still, the shel¬ 
ter of her life and the home of her affec¬ 
tions. Only, sometimes my old anxious 
fears creep over me when I think what she 
will do when we are gone. But I have no 
excuse for these now, with all those promi¬ 
ses of our Lord, and his words about the 
lillies and the birds, in plain German in my 
Bible, and the very same lilies and birds 
preaching to me in song as plain from the 
eaves and the garden outside my window. 

Never did any woman owe so much to 
Dr. Luther and the Reformation as I. 
Christopher’s religion; Fritz and Eva’s mar¬ 
riage; Thekla’s presence in our home, in¬ 
stead of her being a nun in some convent- 
prison; all the love of the last months my 
dear sister Agnes and I spent together be¬ 
fore her peaceful death; and the great 
weight of fear removed from my own heart! 

And yet my timid, ease-loving nature, 
will sometimes shrink, not so much from 
what has been done, as from the way in 
which it has been done. I fancy a little 
more gentleness might have prevented so 
terrible a breach between the new and the 
old religions; that the peasant war might 
have been saved; and somehow or other, 
(how, I cannot at all tell) the good people 
on both sides might have been kept at one. 
For that there are good people on both 


203 

sides, nothing will ever make me doubt. 
Indeed, is not one of our own sons—our 
good and sober-minded Pollux—still in the 
old Church ? And can I doubt that he and 
his devout, affectionate little wife, who 
visits the poor and nurses the sick, love God 
and try to serve him ? 

In truth, I cannot help half counting it 
among our mercies that we have one son 
still adhering to the old religion; although 
my children, who are wiser than I, do not 
think so; nor my husband, who is wiser 
than they; nor Dr. Luther, who is, on the 
whole, I believe, wiser than any one. Per¬ 
haps, I should rather say, that great as the 
grief is to us and the loss to him, I cannot 
help seeing some good in our Pollux, re¬ 
maining as a link between us and the reli¬ 
gion of our fathers. It seems to remind us 
of the tie of our common creation and 
redemption, and our common faith, however 
dim, in our Creator and Redeemer. It pre¬ 
vents our thinking all Christendom which 
belongs to the old religion quite the same as 
the pagans or the Turks; and it also helps 
a little to prevent their thinking us such 
hopeless infidels. 

Besides, although they would not admit 
it, I feel sure that Dr. Luther and the 
Reformation have taught Pollux aud his wife 
many things. They also have a German 
Bible; and although it is much more cum¬ 
brous than Dr. Luther’s, and, it seems to 
me, not half such genuine, hearty German, 
still he and his wife can read it;., and I 
sometimes trust we shall find by-and-by we 
did not really differ so very much about our 
Saviour, although we may have differed 
about Dr. Luther. 

Perhaps I am wrong, however, in think¬ 
ing that great changes might have been 
more quietly accomplished. I'hekla says the 
spring must have its thunder-storms as well 
as its sunshine and gentle showers, and 
that the stone could not be rolled away 
from the sepulchre, nor the veil rent in the 
holy place, without an earthquake. 

Else’s Gottfried says the devil would 
never suffer his lies about the good and 
gracious God to be set aside without a bat¬ 
tle; and that the dear holy angels have 
mighty wars to wage, as well as silent watch 
to keep by the cradles of the little ones. 
Only I cannot help wishing that the reform¬ 
ers, and even Dr. Luther himself, would 
follow the example of the archangel 
Michael in not returning railing for railing. 




m 


THE SCHONBERG-CTTA FAMILY. 


Of one thing, however, I am quite sure, 
whatever any one may say; and that is, 
that it is among our great mercies that our 
Atlantis married a Swiss, to that through 
her we have a link with our brethren the 
evangelical Christians who follow the Zwin- 
glian Confession. I shall always be thankful 
for the months her father and I passed 
under their roof. If Dr. Luther could only 
know how they revere him for his noble 
work, and how one they are with us and 
him in faith in Christ and Christian love! 

I was a little perplexed at one time how 
it could be that such good men should sep¬ 
arate, until Thekla reminded me of that 
evil one who goes about accusing God to us, 
and us to one another. 

On the other hand, some of the Zwing. 
lians are severe on Dr. Luther for his 
“compromise with Rome,” and his “ un- 
scriptural doctrines,” as some of them call 
his teachings about the sacraments. 

These are things on which my head is not 
clear enough to reason. It is always so 
much more natural to me to look out 
for the points of agreement than of differ¬ 
ence; and it does seem to me, that deep 
below all the differences good men often 
mean the same. Dr. Luther looks on holy 
Baptism in contrast with the monastic vows, 
and asserts the common glory of the bap¬ 
tism and Christian profession which all 
Christians share, against the exclusive 
claims of any section of priests and monks. 
And in the Holy Supper, it seems to me 
simply the certainty of the blessing, and 
the reality of the presence of our Saviour in 
the sacrament, that he is really vindicating, 
in his stand on the words, “This is my 
body.” Baptism represents to him the con¬ 
secration and priesthood of all Christians, 
to be defended against all narrow privileges 
of particular orders; the Holy Supper, the 
assured presence of Christ, to be defended 
against all doubters. 

To the Swiss, on the other hand, the con¬ 
trast is between faith and form, letter and 
spirit. This is, at all events, what my hus¬ 
band thinks. 

I wish Dr. Luther would spend a few 
months with our Atlantis and her Conrad. 
I shall always be thankful we did. 

Lately, the tone of Dr. Luther’s preach¬ 
ing has often been reproachful and full of 
warning. These divisions between the 
evangelical Christians distress him so much. 
Yet lie himself, with that resolute will of 


his, keeps them apart, as he would keep his 
children from poison, saying severe and 
bitter things of the Zwinglians, which some¬ 
times grieve me much, because I know 
Conrad Winkelried’s parish and Atlantis’ 
home. 

Well, one thing is certain: if Dr. Luther 
had been like me, we should have had no 
Reformation at all. And Dr. Luther and 
the Reformation have brought peace to my 
heart and joy to my life, for which I would 
go through any storms. Only, to leave our 
dear ones behind in the storms is another 
thing! 

But our dear heavenly Father has not, 
indeed, called us to leave them yet. When 
he does call us, he will give us the strength 
for that. And then we shall see everything 
quite clearly, because we shall see our Sa¬ 
viour quite clearly as he is, know his love, 
and love him quite perfectly. What that 
will be we know not yet! 

But I am quite persuaded that when we 
do really see our blessed Lord face to face, 
and see all things in his light, we shall all 
be very much surprised, and find we have 
something to unlearn, as well as infinitely 
much to learn; not Pollux, and the Zwing¬ 
lians, and I only, but Dr. Philip Melancthon, 
and Dr. Luther, and all! 

For the Reformation, and even Dr. Lu¬ 
ther’s German Bible, have not taken all the 
clouds away. Still, we see through a glass 
darkly. 

But they have taught us that there is 
nothing evil and dark behind to be found 
out; only, much to be revealed which is 
too good for us yet to understand, and too 
bright for us vet to see. 

XXI. 

ETA’S AND AGNEWS STORY. 

Lisleben, 1542. 

Aunt else says no one in the world 
ought to present more thanksgivings to God 
than Heinz and I, and I am sure she is right. 

In the first place, we have the best father 
and mother in the world, so that whenever 
from our earliest years they have spoken 
to us about our Father in heaven, we have 
had just to think of what they were on earth 
to us, and feel that all their love and good¬ 
ness together are what God is; only (if we 
can conceive *uch a thing) much more. 




205 


ETA'S AND AGNES'S STORY. 


We have only had to add to what they are, 
to learn what God is, not to take any tiling 
away; to say to ourselves, as we think of 
our parents, so kind in judging others, so 
loving, so true, “ God is like that—only the 
love is greater and wiser than our father’s, 
tenderer and more sympathizing than our 
mother’s ” (difficult as it is to imagine). 
And then there is just one thing in which 
he is unlike. His power is unbounded. 
He can do for us and give to us every bless¬ 
ing he sees it good to give. 

With such a father and mother on earth, 
and such a Father in heaven, and with 
Heinz, how can I ever thank our God 
enough ? 

And our mother is so young still! Our 
dear father said the other day, “ her hair 
has not a tinge of grey in it, but is as golden 
as our Agnes’s.” And tier face is so fair 
and sweet, and her voice so clear and full 
in her own dear hymns, or in talking! 
Aunt Else says, it makes one feel at rest to 
look at her, and that her voice always was 
the sweetest in the world, something be¬ 
tween church music and the cooing of a 
dove. Aunt Else says also, that even as a 
child she had just the same way she has 
now of seeing what you are thinking about 
—of coming into your heart, and making 
everything that is good in it feel it is under¬ 
stood, and all that is bad in it feel detected 
and slink away. 

Our dear father does not, indeed, look so 
young; but I like men to look as if they 
had been in the wars—as if their hearts 
had been well ploughed and sown. And 
the grey in his hair, and the furrows on his 
forehead—those two upright ones when he 
is thinking—and the firm compression of 
his mouth, and the hollow on his cheek, 
seem to me quite as beautiful in their waj' 
as our mother’s placid brow, and the dear 
look on her lips, like the dawn of a smile, 
as if the law of kindness had moulded every 
curve. 

Then, in the second place (perhaps I 
ought to have said in the first), we have 
“ the Catechism.” And Aunt Else says we 
have no idea, Heinz and I, what a blessing 
that is to us. We certainly did not always 
think it a blessing when we were learning it. 
But 1 begin to understand it now, especially 
since I have been staying at Wittenberg 
with Aunt Else, and she has told me about 
the perplexities of her childhood and early j 
youth. 


Always to have learned about God as the 
Father who “cares for us every day”— 
gives us richly all things to enjoy, and 
“ that all out of pure, fatherly, divine love 
and goodness; and of the Lord Jesus Christ, 
that he has redeemed me from all sin, from 
death, and from the power of the devil, to 
be his own—redeemed me, not with gold 
and silver, but with his holy, precious 
blood ; ” and of the Holy Spirit, that “ he 
dwells with us daily, calls us by his 
Gospel, enlightens, and iichly forgives — 
all this, she says, is the greatest blessing 
any one can know. To have no dark, sus¬ 
picious thoughts of the good God, uncon¬ 
sciously drunk in from infancy, to dash 
away from our hearts—Dr. Luther himself 
says, we have little idea what a gift that 
is to us young people of this generation. 

It used to be like listening to histories of 
dark days centuries ago, to hear Aunt Else 
speak of her childhood at Eisenach, when 
Dr. Luther also was a boy, and used to sing 
for bread at our good kinswoman Ursula 
Cotta’s door—when the monks and nuns 
from the many high-walled convents used 
to walk demurely in their dark robes about 
the streets; and Aunt Else used to tremble 
at the thought of heaven, because it might 
be like a convent garden, and all the 
heavenly saints like Aunt Agnes. 

Our dear Great-Aunt Agnes, how im¬ 
possible for us to understand her being thus 
dreaded !—she who was the playmate of 
our childhood, and used to spoil us, our 
mother said, by doing everything we asked, 
and making us think she enjoyed being 
pulled about, and made a lion or a Turk of, 
as much as we enjoyed it. How well I re¬ 
member now the pang that came over Heinz 
and me when we were told to speak and 
step softly, because she was ill, and then, 
taken for a few minutes in the day to sit 
quite still by her bed-side with picture- 
books, because she loved to look at us, but 
could not bear any noise. And at last the 
day when we were led in solemnly, and she 
could look at us no more, but lay quite still 
and white, while we placed our flowers on 
the bed, and we both felt it too sacred and 
too much like being at church to cry,—until 
our evening prayer-time came, and our 
mother told us that Aunt Agnes did not 
need our prayers any longer, because God 
had made her quite good and happy in 
heaven. And Heinz said he wished God 
would take us all, and make us quite good 




806 


TEE SCEONBERG-COTTA FAMILY . 


and liappy with her. But I, when we were 
left in our cribs alone, sobbed myself to 
sleep. It seemed so terrible to think Aunt 
Agnes did not want us any more, and that 
we could do nothing more for her—she who 
had been so tenderly good to us ! I was 
so afraid, also, that we had not been kind 
enough to her, had teased her to play with 
us, and made more noise than we ought; 
and that that was the reason God had taken 
her away. Heinz could not understand that 
at all. He was quite sure God was too kind ; 
and although he also cried, he soon fell 
asleep. It was a great relief to me when 
our mother came round, as she always did 
the last thing to see if we were asleep, and 
1 could sob out my troubles on her heart, 
and say— 

“Will Aunt Agnes never want us any 
more ? ” 

“ Yes, darling,” said our mother; “she 
wants us now. She is waiting for us all to 
come to her.” 

“Then it was not because we teased her, 
and were noisy, she was taken away ? We 
did love her so very dearly ! And can we 
do nothing for her now?” 

Then she told me how Aunt Agnes had 
suffered much here, and that our Heavenly 
Father had taken her home, and that al¬ 
though we could not do anything for her 
now, we need not leave her name out of our 
nightly prayers, because we could always 
say, “Thank God for taking dear Aunt 
Agnes home! ” 

And so two things were written on my 
heart that night, that there was a place like 
home beyond the sky, where Aunt Agnes 
was waiting for us, loving us quite as much 
as ever, with God who loved us more than 
any one; and that we must be as kind as 
possible to people, and not give any one a 
moment’s pain, because a time may come 
when they will not need our kindness any 
more. 

It is very difficult for me who always 
thinks of Aunt Agnes waiting for us in 
heaven, with the wistful loving look she 
used to have when she lay watching for 
Heinz and me to come and sit by her bed¬ 
side, to imagine what different thoughts 
Aunt Else had about her when she was a 
nun. 

But Aunt Else says she has no doubt that 
Heinz and I, with our teasing, and our 
noise, and our love were among the chief 
instruments of her sanctification. Yes 


those days of Aunt Else’s childhood appear 
as far away from us as the days of St. 
Elizabeth of Hungary, who lived at the 
Wartburg, used to seem from Aunt Else. 
It is wonderful to think what that miner’s 
son, whom old John Reineck remembers 
carrying on his shoulders to the school- 
house up the hill, here at Eisleben, has done 
for us all. So completely that grim old time 
seems to have passed away. There is not a 
monastery left in all Saxony, and the pas¬ 
tors are all married, and schools are estab¬ 
lished in every town, where Dr. Luther says 
the young lads and maidens liearmore about 
God and Christianity than the nuns and 
monks in all the convents had learned thirty 
years ago. 

Not that all the boys and maidens are good 
as they ought to be. No; that is too plain 
from what Heinz and I feel and know, and 
also from what our dear father preaches in 
the pulpit on Sundays. Our mother says 
sometimes she is afraid we of this genera¬ 
tion ihall grow up weak, and self-indulgent, 
and ease-loving, unlike our fathers who had 
to fight for every inch of the truth they 
hold, with the world, the flesh, and the 
devil. 

But our dear father smiles gravely, and 
says, she need not fear. These three ene¬ 
mies are not slain yet, and will give the 
young generation enough to do. Besides, 
the Pope is still reigning at Rome, and the 
Emperor is even now threatening us with 
an army, to say nothing of the Turks, and 
the Anabaptists, of whom Dr. Luther says 
so much. 

I knew very little of the world until two 
years ago, and not much, 1 am afraid, of 
myself. But when 1 was about fifteen I 
went alone to stay with Aunt Chriemhild 
and Aunt Else, and then I learned many 
things which in learning troubled me not a 
little, but now that they are learned make 
me happier than before, which our mother 
says is the way with most of God’s lessons. 
Before these visits, I had never left home; 
and although Heinz who had been away, 
and was also naturally more thrown with 
other people as a boy than I was, often told 
me I knew no more of actual life than a 
baby, I never understood what he meant. 

I suppose I had always unconsciously 
thought our father and mother were the 
centre of the world to every one as well as 
to us; and had just been thankful for my 
lot in life, because I believed in all respects 







EVA'S AND AGNE '3 STORY. 


no one else had anything like it; and enter¬ 
tained a quiet conviction that in their hearts 
every one thought the same. And to find 
that to other people our lot in life seemed 
pitiable and poor was an immense surprise 
to me, and no little grief. 

We left our old home in the forest many 
years since, when Heinz and I were quite 
children; and it only lingered in our mem¬ 
ories as a kind of Eden or fairyland, where 
amongst wild flowers, and green glades, 
and singing birds, and streams, we made a 
home for all our dreams, not questioning, 
however, in our hearts that our new home 
at Eisleben was quite as excellent in its way. 
Have we not a garden behind the house 
with several apple-trees, and a pond as 
large as any of our neighbors, and an 
empty loft for wet days—the perfection of 
a loft—for telling fairy tales in, or making 
experiments, or preparing surprises of won¬ 
derful cabinet work with Heinz's tools ? 
And has not our Eisleben valley also its 
green and wooded hills, and in the forests 
around are there not strange glows all night 
from the great miners’ furnaces to which 
those of the charcoal burners in the Thur- 
ingen forest are mere toys ? And are there 
not, moreover, all kinds of wild caverns and 
pits from which at intervals the miners come 
forth, grimy and independent, and sing 
their wild songs in chorus as they come 
home from work ? And is not Eisleben Dr. 
Luther’s birth-place? And have we not a 
high grammar-school which Dr. Luther 
founded, and in which our dear father 
teaches Latin ? And do we not hear him 
preach, once every Sunday ? 

To me it always seemed, and seems still, 
that nothing can be nobler than our dear 
father’s office of telling the people the way 
to heaven on Sundays, and teaching their 
children the way to be wise and good on 
earth in the week. It was a shock to me 
when I found every one did not think the 
same. 

Not that every one was not always most 
kind to me, but it happened in this way. 

One day some visitors had been at Uncle 
Ulrich’s castle. They had complimented me 
on my golden hair, which Heinz always 
says is the color of the princess’ in the fairy 
tale. I went out at Aunt Chriemhild’s de¬ 
sire, feeling half shy and half fluttered, to 
play with my cousins in the forest. As I was 
sitting hidden among the trees, twining 
wreaths from the forget-me-nots my cousins 


307 

were gathering by the stream below, these 
ladies passed again. I heard one of them 
say,— 

“Yes, she is a well-mannered little thing 
for a schoolmaster’s daughter.” 

“I cannot think where a burgher maid— 
the Cottas are all burghers, are they not ?— 
should inherit those little white hands and 
those delicate features,” said the other. 

“Poor, too, doubtless, as they must be,’’ 
was the reply, “ one would think she had 
never had to work about the house, as nc 
doubt she must.” 

“ Who was her grandfather?” 

“ Only a printer at Wittenberg!” 

“Only a schoolmaster” and “only a prin. 
terl” 

My whole heart was against the scornful 
words. Was this what people meant by 
paying compliments? Was this the estimate 
my father was held in in the world—he, the 
noblest man in it, who was fit to be the 
Elector, or the Emperor ? A bitter feeling 
came over me, which I thought was affec¬ 
tion and an aggrieved sense of justice. But 
love is scarcely so bitter, or justice so fiery. 

I did not tell any one, nor did I shed a 
tear, but went on weaving my forget-me- 
not wreaths, and forswore the wicked and 
hollow world. Had I not promised to do 
so long since, through my godmother, at my 
baptism? Now, 1 thought, I was learning 
what all that meant. 

At Aunt Else’s, however, another expe¬ 
rience awaited me. There was to be a fair, 
and we were all to go in our best holiday 
dresses. My cousins had rich Oriental jew¬ 
els on their bodices; and although, as bur¬ 
gher maidens, they might not, like my 
cousins at the castle, wear velvets, they had 
jackets and dresses of the stiffest, richest 
silks which Uncle Reichenbach had brought 
from Italy and the East. 

My stuff dress certainly looked plain be¬ 
side them, but I did not care in the least 
for that; my own dear mother and I had 
made it together; and she had hunted up 
some old precious stores to make me a taf¬ 
fetas jacket, which, as it was the most mag¬ 
nificent apparel I had ever possessed, we 
both looked at with much complacency. 
Nor did it seem to me in the least less beau¬ 
tiful now. The touch of my mother’s fin¬ 
gers had been on it, as she smoothed it 
round me the evening before I came away. 
And Aunt Else had said it was exactly like 
my mother. But my cousins were not quite 



208 THE 8CH0NB ERG-COTTA FAMILY , 


pleased, it was evident; especially Fritz and 
the elder boys, They said nothing; but on 
the morning of the fete, a beautiful new 
dress, the counterpart of my cousins’, was 
laid at the bedside before I awoke. 

1 put it on with some pleasure, but, when 
I looked myself in the glass—it was very 
unreasonable—I could not bear it. It seemed 
a reproach on my mother, and on my hum¬ 
ble life and my dear, poor home at Eisleben, 
and 1 sat down and cried bitterly, until a 
gentle knock at the door aroused me; and 
Aunt Else came in, and found me sitting 
with tears on my face and on the beautiful 
new dress, exceedingly ashamed of myself. 

“Don’t you like it, my child? It was 
Fritz’s thought. I was afraid you might 
not be pleased.” 

“ My mother thought the old one good 
enough,” I said in a very faltering tone. 
“ It was good enough for my home. I had 
better go home again.” 

Aunt Else was carefully wiping away the 
tears from my dress, but at these words 
she began to cry herself, and drew me to 
her heart, and said it was exactly what she 
should have felt in her young days at Eis¬ 
enach, but that I must just wear the new 
dress to the fete, and then I need never wear 
it again unless I liked; and that I was right 
in thinking nothing half so good as my 
mother, and all she did, because nothing 
ever was, or would be, she was sure. 

So we cried together, and were comforted; 
and I wore the green taffetas to the fair. 

But when I came home again to Eisle¬ 
ben, I felt more ashamed of myself than 
of the taffetas dress, or of the flattering 
ladies at the Castle. The dear, precious 
old home, in spite of all I could persuade 
myself to the contrary, did look small and 
poor, and the furniture worn and old. And 
yet I could see there new traces of care and 
welcome everywhere—fresh rushes on the 
floors; a plain new quilt on my litte bed, 
made, I knew, by my mother’s hands. 

She knew very soon that 1 was feeling 
troubled about something, and soon she 
knew it all, as I told her my bitter expe¬ 
riences of life. 

“Your father ‘only a schoolmaster!’ ” she 
said, “and you yourself presented with a 
new taffetas dress ! Are these all your griev¬ 
ances.little Agnes?” 

“ All, mother,” I exclaimed; “and 
only! ” 


“Is your father anything else but a 
schoolmaster, Agnes?” she said. 

“Iam not ashamed of that for an in¬ 
stant, mother,” I said; “ you could not 
think it. 1 think it is much nobler to teach 
children than to hunt foxes, and buy and 
sell bales of silk and wool. But the world 
seems to me exceedingly hollow and 
crooked; and I never wish to see any more 
of it. Oh, mother, do you think it was all 
nonsense in me ?” 

“ 1 think, my child, you have had an en¬ 
counter with the world, the flesh, and the 
devil; and I think they are no contemptible 
enemies. And I think you have not left 
them behind.” 

“ But is not our father’s calling nobler 
than any one’s, and our home the nicest in 
the world ?” I said; “ and Eisleben really 
as beautiful in its way as the Thiiringen 
forest, and as wise as Wittenberg ?” 

‘/All callings maybe noble,” she said; 
“and the one God calls us to is the noblest 
for us. Eisleben is not, 1 think, as beauti¬ 
ful as the old forest-covered hills at Gers- 
dorf; nor Luther’s birth-place as great as 
his dwelling-place, where he preaches and 
teaches, and sheds around him the influ¬ 
ence of his holy daily life. Other homes 
maybe as good as yours, dear child, though 
none can be so to you.” 

And so I learned that what makes any 
calling noble is its being commanded by 
God, and what makes anything good is its 
being given by God; and that honest con¬ 
tentment consists not in persuading our¬ 
selves that our things are the very best in 
the world, but in believing they are the 
best for us, and giving God thanks for 
them. 

That was the way I began to learn to 
know the world. And also in that way 1 
began better to understand the Catechism, 
especially the part about the Lord’s Prayer, 
and that on the second article of the Creed, 
where we learn of Him who suffered for 
our sins and redeemed us with his holy 
precious blood. 

I have just returned from my second 
visit to Wittenberg, which was made hap¬ 
pier than my first—indeed, exceedingly 
happy. 

The great delight of my visit, however, 
has been seeing and hearing Dr. Luther. 
His little daughter, Magdalene, three years 
younger than lam, had died not long before 
but that seemed only to make Dr. Luther 



209 


THEKLA'S STORY. 


kinder than ever to all young maidens— 
“ the poor maidenkind” as he calls them. 

His sermons seemed to me like a father 
talking to his children; and Aunt Else says 
he repeats the Catechism often himself “to 
God” to cheer his heart and strengthen 
himself—the great Dr. Martin Luther ! 

I had heard so much of him, and always 
thought of him as the man nearest God on 
earth, great with a majesty surpassing in¬ 
finitely that of the Elector or the Emperor. 
And now it was a great delight to see him 
in his home, in the dark wainscoted room 
looking on his garden, and to see him raise 
his head from his writing and smile kindly 
at us a3 he sat at the great table in the 
broad window, with Mistress Luther sew¬ 
ing on a lower seat beside him, and little 
Margaretha Luther, the youngest child, 
quietly playing beside them, contented with 
a look now and then from her father. 

I should like to have seen Magdalene 
Luther. She must have been such a good 
and loving child. But thaX will be here¬ 
after in heaven ! 

I suppose my feeling for Dr. Luther is 
different from that of my mother and 
father. They knew him during the con¬ 
flict. We only know him as the conqueror, 
with the palm, as it were, already in his 
hand. 

But my great friend at Wittenberg is 
Aunt Thekla. I think, on the whole, there 
is no one I should more wish to be like. 
She understands one in that strange way 
without telling, like my mother. I think it 
is because she has felt so much. Aunt Else 
told me of the terrible sorrow she had when 
she was young. 

Our dear mother and father also had their 
great sorrows, although they came to the 
end of their sorrow in this life, and Aunt 
Thekla will only come to the end of hers in 
the other world. But it seems to have con¬ 
secrated them all, I think, in some pecu¬ 
liar way. They all, and Dr. Luther also, 
make me think of the people who, they 
say, have the gift, by striking on the 
ground, of discovering where the hidden 
springs lie that others may know where to 
dig for the wells. Can sorrow only confer 
this gift of knowing where to find the hid¬ 
den springs in the heart ? If so it must be 
worth while to suffer. Only there are just 
one or two sorrows which it seems almost 
impossible to bear. 

But, as our mother says, our Saviour has 


all the gifts in his hands; and “ the greatest 
gift” of all (in whose hands the roughest 
tools can do the finest work) “is love!” 
And that is just the gift any one of us may 
have without limit. 

THEKLA’S STORY. 

Wittenberg, 23d January , 1546. 

Dr. Luther has left Wittenberg to-day for 
Eisleben, his birth-place, to settle a dispute 
between the Courts of Mansfeld concerning 
certain rights of church patronage. 

He left in good spirits, intending to re¬ 
turn in a few days. His three sons, John, 
Martin, and Paul, went with him. Mistress 
Luther is anxious and depressed about his 
departure, but we trust without especial 
cause, although he has often of late been 
weak and suffering. 

The dullness and silence which to me al¬ 
ways seem to settle down on Wittenberg in 
his absence are increased now doubtless by 
this wintry weather, and the rains and 
storms which have been swelling the rivers 
to floods. He is, indeed, the true father 
and king of our little world; and when he 
is with us all Germany and the world seem 
nearer us through his wide-seeing mind and 
his heart that thrills to every touch of want 
or sorrow throughout the world. 

February. 

Mistress Luther has told me to-day that 
Dr. Luther said before he left he could 
“ lie down on his deathbed with joy if he 
could first see his dear Lords of Mansfeld 
reconciled.” She says also he lias just con¬ 
cluded the Commentary on Genesis, on 
which he has been working these ten year3, 
with these words— 

“ lam weak and can do no more. Pray 
God he may grant me a peaceful and happy 
death.” 

She thinks his mind has been dwell¬ 
ing of late more than usual, even with 
him, on death, and fears he feels some in¬ 
ward premonition or presentiment of a 
speedy departure. 

So long he has spoken of death as a thing to 
be desired ! Yet it always makes our heart 
ache to hear him do so. Of the Advent as 
the end of all evil and the beginning of 
the Kingdom, we can well bear to hear him 
speak, but not of that which, if the end of 
all evil to him, would seem like the begin¬ 
ning of all sorrows to us. 

Now, however, Mistress Luther is some¬ 
what comforted by his letters, which are 
more cheerful than those she received dur- 



210 


THE SCHONBERG-COTTA FAMILY. 


ing his absence last year, when he coun¬ 
selled her to sell their Wittenberg property, 
and take refuge in her estate at Zollsdorf, 
that he might know her safe out of Witten¬ 
berg—that “ haunt of selfishness and lux¬ 
ury”—before he died. 

His first letter since leaving Wittenberg 
this time is addressed— 

“ To my kind and dear Katlie Lutherin, 
at Wittenberg, grace and peace in the Lord. 

“ Dear Katlie,—To-day, at half-past eight 
o’clock, we reached Halle, but have not yet 
arrived at Eisleben; for a great Anabaptist 
encountered us with water-fioods and great 
blocks of ice, which covered the land, and 
threatened to baptize us all again. Neither 
could we return, on account of the Mulda. 
Therefore we remain tranquilly here at 
Halle, between the two streams. Not that 
we thirst for water to drink, but console 
ourselves with good Torgau beer and Rhine 
wine, in case the Saala should break out 
into a rage again. For we and our ser¬ 
vants, and the ferrymen, would not tempt 
God by venturing on the water; for the 
devil is furious against us, and dwells in 
the water-floods; and it is better to escape 
him than to complain of him, nor is it nec¬ 
essary that we should become the jest of 
the Pope and his hosts. I could not have 
believed that the Saala could have made 
such a brewing, bursting over the causeway 
and all. Now no more; but pray for us 
and the pious. I hold, hadst thou been 
here, thou hadst counselled us to do pre¬ 
cisely what we have done. So for once we 
should have taken thy advice. Herewith I 
commend you to God. Amen. At Halle, 
on the day of the conversion of St. Paul. 

“ Martinus Luther.” 

Four other letters she has received, one 
dated on the 2d of February, addressed— 

“ To my heartily beloved consort Kathe- 
rin Lutherin, the Zdllsdorfin doctoress, pro¬ 
prietress of the Sailmarkt, and whatever 
else she may be, grace and peace in Christ; 
and my old poor (and, as I know, power¬ 
less) love to thee! 

“ Dear Katlie,—I became very weak on 
the road close to Eisleben, for my sins; 
although, wert thou there, thou wouldst 
have said it was for the sins of the Jews. 
For near Eisleben we passed through a vil¬ 
lage where many Jews reside, and it is true, 
as I came through it, a cold wind came 
through ray Baret (doctor’s hat), and ray 


head, as if it would turn my brain to ice. 

“Thy sons left Mansfeld yesterday, be¬ 
cause Hans von Tene so humbly entreated' 
them to accompany him. I know not what 
they do. If it were cold, they might help 
me freeze here. Since, however, it is warm 
again, they may do or suffer anything else 
they like. Herewith I commend you and 
all the house to God, and greet all our 
friends, Vigilia purificationis.” 

And again— 

Eisleben. 

“To the deeply learned lady Katharin 
Luther, my gracious consort, at Witten¬ 
berg, grace and peace. 

“ Dear Kathe,—We sit here and suffer 
ourselves to be tortured, and would gladly 
be away: but that cannot be, I think, for a 
week. Thou mayest say to Master Philip 
that he may correct his exposition; for he 
has not yet rightly understood why the 
Lord called riches thorns. Here is the 
school in which to learn that” (i. e., the 
Mansfeld controversy about property). 
“ But it dawns on me that in the Holy 
Scriptures thorns are always menaced with 
fire; therefore, I have all the more patience, 
hoping, with God’s help, to bring some 
good out of it all. It seems to me the devil 
laughs at us; but God laughs him to scorn J 
Amen. Pray for us. The messenger hastes. 
On St. Dorothea’s day. 

“ M. L. (thy old lover.)” 

Dr. Luther seems to be enjoying himself 
in his own simple hearty way, at his old 
home. Nobles, and burghers, and wives, 
give him the most friendly welcome. 

The third letter Mistress Luther has re¬ 
ceived is full of playful, tender answers to 
her anxieties about him. 

“ To my dear consort Katharin Lutherin, 
doctoress and selLtormentor at Wittenberg, 
my gracious lady, grace and peace in the 
Lord. Read thou, dear K&the, the Gospel 
of John, and the smaller Catechism, and 
then thou wilt say at once, ‘ All that is in 
the book is said of me.’ For thou must 
needs take the cares of thy God upon thee, 
as if he were not almighty, and could not 
create ten Doctor Martins, if the old Doctor 
Martin were drowned in the Saala. Leave 
me in peace with thy cares! 1 have a better 
guardian than thou and all the angels. It 
is he who lay in the manger, and was 
fondled on a maiden’s breast; but who sit- 
teth also now on the right hand of God the 
Almighty Father. Therefore be at peace ” 





FRITZ'S STORY. 


211 


And again— 

“To the saintly, anxious lady, Katharin 
Lutherin, Doctorin Zulsdorferin at Witten¬ 
berg, my gracious dear wife, grace and 
peace in Christ. Most saintly lady Doc- 
toress,—We thank your ladyship kindly for 
your great anxiety and care for us which 
prevented your sleeping; for since the time 
that you had this care for us, a fire nearly 
consumed us in our inn, close to my cham¬ 
ber door; and yesterday (doubtless by the 
power of your care), a stone almost fell on 
our head, and crushed us as in a mouse¬ 
trap. For in our private chamber during 
more than two days, lime and mortar 
crashed above us, until we sent for work¬ 
men, who only touched the stone with two 
fingers, when it fell, as large as a large pil¬ 
low two hand-breadths wide. For all this 
we should have to thank your anxiety; had 
not the dear holy angels been guarding us 
also! I begin to be anxious that if your 
anxieties do not cease, at last the earth may 
swallow us up, and all the elements pursue 
us. Dost thou indeed teach the Catechism 
and the Creed ? Do thou then pray, and 
leave God to care, as it is promised. ‘ Cast 
thy burden on the Lord, and he shall sus¬ 
tain thee.’ 

“ We would now gladly be free and 
journey homewards, if God willed it so. 
Amen. Amen. Amen. On Scholastica’s 
day. The willing servant of your holiness, 
“ Martin Luther.” 

February 17. 

Good news for us all at Wittenberg! 
Mistress Luther has received a letter from 
the Doctor, dated the 14th February, an¬ 
nouncing his speedy return. 

“To my kind, dear wife, Katharine Lu¬ 
therin von Bora, at Wittenberg,— 

“Grace and peace in the Lord, dear 
Kathe ! We hope this week to come home 
again, if God will. God has shown us great 
grace; for the lords have arranged all 
through their referees, except two or three 
articles—one of which is that Count Geb- 
liard and Count Albrecht should again be¬ 
come brothers, which I undertake to-day, 
and will invite them to be my guests, that 
they may speak to each other, for hitherto 
they have been dumb, and have embittered 
one another with severe letters. 

“ The young men are all in the best 
spirits, make excursions with fools’ bells on 
sledges—the young ladies also—and amuse 


themselves together; and among them also 
Count Gebhard’s son. So we must under¬ 
stand God is exauditor precum. 

“ I send to the some game which the 
Countess Albrecht has presented to me. 
She rejoices with all her heart at the peace. 
Thy sons are still at Mansfeld. Jacob Lu¬ 
ther will take good care of them. We have 
food and drink here like noblemen—and we 
are waited on well—too well, indeed—so 
that we might forget you at Wittenberg. 
I have no ailments. 

“This thou canst show to Master 
•Philip, to Doctor Dormer, and to Doctor 
Creuzer. The report has reached this place 
that Doctor Martin has been snatched away, 
as they say at Magdeburg and at Leipzig. 
Such fictions those countrymen compose, 
who see as far as their noses. Some say 
the emperor is thirty miles from this, at 
Soest, in Westphalia; some that the French¬ 
man is captive, and also the Landgrave. 
But let us sing and say, we will wait what 
God the Lord will do.—Eisleben, on the 
Sunday Valentini. M. Luther, D.” 

So the work of peace-making is done, and 
Dr. Luther is to return to us this week— 
long, we trust, to enjoy among us the peace¬ 
maker’s beatitude. 

FRITZ’S STORY. 

Eisleben, 1548. 

It has been quite a festival day at Eisle¬ 
ben. The child who, sixty-three years 
since, was born here to John Luther the 
miner, returns to-day the greatest man in 
the empire, to arbitrate in a family dispute 
of the Counts of Mansfeld. “ 

As Eva and I watched him enter the 
town to-day from the door of our humble 
happy home, she said,— 

“ He that is greatest among you shall be 
as he that doth serve.” 

These ten last years of service have, how¬ 
ever, aged him much! 

I could not conceal from myself that they 
had. There are traces of suffering on the 
expressive face, and there is a touch of 
feebleness in the form and step. 

“ How is it,”I said to Eva, “thatElse or 
Thekla did not tell us of this ? He is cer¬ 
tainly much feebler.” 

“ They are always with him,” she said, 
“and we never see what Time is doing, 
love; but only what he has done.” 

Her words made me thoughtful. Could 




212 


TEE SCHOtfB ERG-COTTA FAMILY. 




it be that such changes were passing on us 
also, and that we were failing to observe 
them ? 

When Dr. Luther and the throng had 
passed, we returned into the house, and 
Eva resumed her knitting, while I recom¬ 
menced the study of my sermon; but secretly 
1 raised my eyes from my books and sur¬ 
veyed her. If time had indeed thus been 
changing that beloved form, it was better I 
should know it, to treasure more the pre¬ 
cious days he was so treacherously stealing. 

Yet scarcely, with the severest scrutiny, 
could I detect the trace of age or suffering 
on her face or form. The calm brow was 
as white and calm as ever. The golden 
hair, smoothly braided under her white 
matronly cap, was as free from gray as even 
our Agnes’s, who was flitting in and out of 
the winter sunshine, busy with household 
work in the next room. There was a round¬ 
ness on the cheek, although, perhaps, its 
curve was a little changed; and when she 
looked upandmetmy eyes, was there notthe 
very same happy, childlike smile as ever, 
that seemed to overflow from a world of 
sunshine within? 

“ No!” I said: “ Eva, thank God, I have 
not deluded myself ! Time has not stolen 
a march on you yet.” 

“Think how 1 have been shielded, Fritz,” 
she said. “What a sunny and sheltered 
life mine has been, never encountering any 
storm except under the shelter of such a 
home and such love. But Dr. Luther has 
been so long the one foremost and highest, 
on whose breast the first force of every 
storm has burst.” 

Just then our Heinz came in. 

“Your father is trying to prove I am not 
growing old,” she said. 

“Who said such a thing of our mother?” 
asked Heinz, turning fiercely to Agnes. 

“No one,” I said; “ but it startled me to 
see the change in Dr. Luther, and I began 
to fear what changes might have been going 
on unobserved in our own home.” 

“Is Dr. Luther much changed ?” said 
Heinz. “1 think I never saw a nobler face, 
so resolute and true, and with such a keen 
glance in his dark eyes. He might have 
been one of the Emperor’s greatest gen¬ 
erals,—he looks like a veteran.” 

“Is he not a veteran, Heinz ? ” said Eva. 
“Has he not fought all our battles for us 
for years? What do you think of him, 
Agnes ? ” 


“I remember best the look he gave my 
father and you,” she said. “His face looked 
so full of kindness; I thought how happy 
he must make his home.” 

That evening was naturally a time, with 
Eva and me, for going over the past. And 
how much of it is linked with Dr. Luther! 
That our dear home exists at all is, through 
God, his work. And more even than that: 
the freedom and peace of our hearts came 
to us chiefly at first through him. All the 
past came back to me when I saw his face 
again; as if suddenly flashed on me from a 
mirror. The days when he sang before 
Aunt Ursula Cotta’s door at Eisenach— 
when the voice which has since stirred all 
Christendom to its depths sang carols for a 
piece of bread. Then the gradual passing 
away of the outward trials of poverty, 
through his father’s prosperity and liberal¬ 
ity—the brilliant prospects opening before 
him at the University—his sudden, yet de¬ 
liberate closing of all those earthly schemes 
—the descent into the dark and bitter 
waters, where he fought the fight for his 
age, and, all but sinking, found the Hand 
that saved him, and came to the shore again 
on the right side; and not alone, but up¬ 
held evermore by the hand that rescued 
him, and which he has made known to the 
hearts of thousands. 

Then I seemed to see him stand before 
the Emperor at Worms, in that day when 
men did not know whether to wonder most 
at his gentleness or his daring—in that hour 
which men thought was his hour of conflict 
but which was in truth his hour of triumph, 
after the real battle had been fought and 
the real victory won. 

And now twenty years more had passed 
away; the Bible has been translated by him 
into German, and is speaking in countless 
homes; homes hallowed (and, in many in¬ 
stances, created) by his teaching. 

“What then,” said Eva, “has beengained 
by his teaching and his work ? ” 

“The yoke of tradition, and of the 
papacy, is broken,” I said. “The Gospel is 
preached in England, and, with more or 
less result, throughout Germany. In Den¬ 
mark, an evangelical pastor has consecrated 
King Christian III. In the low countries, 
and elsewhere, men and women have been 
martyred, as in the primitive ages, for the 
faith. In France and in Switzerland evan¬ 
gelical truth has been embraced by tens of 



FRITZ'S STORY. 


21 8 


thousands, although not in Dr. Luther’s 
form, nor only from his lips.” 

“These are great results,” she replied; 
“but they are eternal—at least, we can only 
see the outside of them. What fruit is 
there in thi3 little world, around us at Eisle- 
ben, of whose heart we know something?” 

“The golden age is, indeed, not come,” I 
said, “ or the Counts of Mansfeld would 
not be quarrelling about church patronage, 
and needing Dr. Luther as a peacemaker. 
Nor would Dr. Luther need so continually 
to warn the rich against avarice, and to de¬ 
nounce the selfishness which spent thou¬ 
sands of florins to buy exemption from 
future punishment, but grudges afewkreu- 
zers to spread the glad tidings of the grace 
of God, If covetousness is idolatry, it is too 
plain that the Reformation has, with many, 
only changed the idol.” 

“ Yet,” replied Eva, “it is certainly some¬ 
thing to have the idol removed from the 
Church to the market, to have it called by 
a despised instead of by a hallowed name, 
and disguised in any rather than in sacred 
vestments.” 

Thus we came to the conclusion that the 
Reformation had done for us what sunrise 
does. It had wakened life, and ripened 
real fruits of heaven in many places, and it 
had revealed evil and noisome things in 
their true forms. The world, the flesh, and 
the devil remain unchanged; but it is much 
to have learned that the world is not a cer¬ 
tain definite region outside the cloister, but 
an atmosphere to be guarded against as 
around us everywhere ; that the flesh is not 
the love of kindred or of nature, but of self 
in these, and that the devil’s most fiery dart 
is distrust of God. For us personally, and 
ours, how infinitely much Dr. Luther has 
done ; and if for us and ours, how much 
for countless other hearts and homes un¬ 
known to us ! 

Monday , February 15, 1543. 

Dr. Luther administered the communion 
yesterdsy, and preached. It has been a 
great help to have him going in and out 
among us. Four times he has preached ; it 
seems to us, with as much point and fervor 
as ever. To-day, however, there was a deep 
solemnity about his words. His text was 
in Matt, xi., “ Fear not therefore ; for there 
is nothingcoveredthat shall not be revealed, 
and hide hat shall not be known. What I 
tell you in darkness, that speak ye in light; 
and what ye hear in the ear, that preach ye on 


the house-tops. And fear not them which 
kill the body, but are not able to kill the 
soul; but rather fear him which is able to 
destroy both soul and body in hell. Are 
not two sparrows sold for a farthing ? And 
one of them shall not fall on the ground 
without your Father. But the very hairs of 
your head are all numbered.” He must 
have felt feebler than he seemed, for he 
closed with the words— 

“This, and much more, may be said 
from the passage but I am too weak, and 
here we will close.” 

Eva seemed very grave all the rest of the 
day ; and when I returned from the school 
on this morning, she met me with an 
anxious face at the door, and said— 

“ Is the Doctor better ? ” 

“ I have not heard that he is ill,” I said. 
“ He was engaged with the arbitration again 
to-day.” 

“ I cannot get those words of his out of 
my head,” she said; “ they haunt me— 

‘ Ilere we will close.' I connot help think¬ 
ing what it would be never to hear that 
faithful voice again.” 

“ You are depressed, my love,” Isaid, “ at 
the thought of Dr. Luther’s leaving us this 
week. But by-and-by we will stay some 
little time at Wittenberg, and hear him 
again there.” 

“ If God will 1 ” she said gravely, “What 
God has given us, through him, can never 
betaken away.” 

I have inquired again about him, how¬ 
ever, frequently, to-day, but there seems 
no cause for anxiety. He retired from the 
Great Hall where the conferences and the 
meals take place, at eight o’clock ; and 
this evening, as often before during his 
visit, Dr. Jonas overheard him praying 
aloud at the window of his chamber. 

Thursday, 18 th February. 

The worst—the very worst—has come to 
pass ! The faithful voice is, indeed, silenced 
to us on earth for ever. 

Here where the life began it was closed. 
He who, sixty-three years ago, lay here a 
little helpless babe, lies here again a life¬ 
less corpse. Yet it is not with sixty-three 
years ago, but with three days since that we 
feel the bitter contrast. Three days ago he 
was among us the counsellor, the teacher, 
the messenger of God, and now that heart, 
open, tender to sympathize with sorrows, 
and so strong toTear a nation’s burden, has 
ceased to beat. 



314 TEE SC HONE ERG 

Yesterday it was observed that he was 
feeble and ailing. The Princes of Anhalt 
and the Count Albert of Mansfeld, with Dr. 
Jonas and his other friends, entreated him 
to vest in his own room during the morning. 
He was not easily persuaded to spare him¬ 
self, and probably would not have yielded 
then, had he not felt that the work of re¬ 
conciliation was accomplished, in all save a 
few supplementary details. Much of the 
forenoon, therefore, he reposed on a leath¬ 
ern couch in his room, occasionally rising, 
with the restlessness of illness, and pacing 
the room, and standing in the window 
praying, so that Dr. Jonas and Coelius, who 
were in another part of the room, could 
hear him. He dined, however, at noon, in 
the Great Hall, with those assembled there. 
At dinner he said to some near him, “ If I 
can, indeed, reconcile the rulers of my 
birth-place with each other, and then, with 
God’s permission, accomplish the journey 
back to Wittenberg, I would go home and 
lay myself down to sleep in my grave, and 
let the worms devour my body.” 

He was not one weakly to sigh for selep 
before night; and we now know too well 
from how deep a sense of bodily weariness 
and weakness that wish sprang. Tension 
of heart and mind, and incessant work,— 
the toil of a daily mechanical laborer, with 
the keen, wearying thought of the highest 
intellectual energy,—working as much as 
any drudging slave, and as intensely as if 
all he did was his delight,—at sixty-three 
the strong, peasant frame was worn out as 
most men’s are at eighty, and he longed for 
rest. 

In the afternoon he complained of painful 
pressure on the breast, and requested that 
it might be rubbed with warm cloths. This 
relieved him a little; and he went to sup¬ 
per again with his friends in the Great Hall. 
At table he spoke much of eternity, and 
said he believed his own death was near; 
yet his conversation was not only cheerful, 
but at times gay, although it related chiefly 
to the future world. One near him asked 
whether departed saints would recognize 
each other in heaven. He said Yes, he 
thought they would. 

When he left the supper-table he went to 
his room. 

In the night,—last night,—his two sons, 
Paul and Martin, thirteen and fourteen 
years of age, sat up to watch with him, with 
Justus Jonas, whose joys and sorrows he 


-COTTA FAMILY. 

had shared through so many years. Coelius 
and Aurifaber also were with him. The 
pain in the breast returned, and again they 
tried rubbing him with hot cloths. Count 
Albert came, and the Countess, with two 
physicians, and brought him some shavings 
from the tusk of a sea-unicorn, deemed a 
sovereign remedy. He took it, and slept 
till ten. Then he awoke, and attempted 
once more to pace the room a little; but he 
could not, and returned to bed. Then he 
slept again till one. During these two or 
three hours of sleep, his host Albrecht, with 
his wife, Ambrose, Jonas, and Luther’s 
son, watched noiselessly beside him, quietly 
keeping up the fire. Everything depended 
on how long he slept, and how he woke. 

The first words he spoke when he awoke 
sent a shudder of apprehension through 
their hearts. 

He complained of cold, and asked them to 
pile up more fire. Alas! the chill was 
creeping over him which no effort of man 
could remove. 

Dr. Jonas asked him if he felt very weak. 

“Oh,” he replied, “ how I suffer! My 
dear Jonas, I think I shall die here, at Eis- 
leben, where I was born and baptized.” 

His other friends were awakened, and 
brought in to his bedside. 

Jonas spoke of the sweat on his brow as 
a hopeful sign, but Dr. Luther answered,— 

“It is the cold sweat of death. I must 
yield up my spirit, for my sickness in- 
creaseth.” 

Then he prayed fervently, saying,— 

“Heavenly Father ! everlasting and mer¬ 
ciful God ! thou hast revealed to me thy 
dear Son, our Lord Jesus Christ. Him hav* 
I taught; Him have I experienced; Him 
have I confessed; Him I love and adore as 
my beloved Saviour, Sacrifice, and Redeem¬ 
er—Him whom the godless persecute, dis¬ 
honor, and reproach. 0 heavenly Father, 
though 1 must resign my body, and be 
borne away from this life, I know that I 
shall be with him for ever. Take my poor 
soul up to thee.” 

Afterwards he took a little medicine, and, 
assuring his friends that he was dying, said 
three times,— 

“Father, into thy hands do I commend 
my spirit. Thou hast redeemed me, thou 
faithful God. Truly Ood hath so loved the 
world /” 

Then he lay quite quiet and motionless. 
Those around sought to rouse him, aud be- 





ELSE'S STORY. 


215 


gnn to mb his chest anil limbs, and spoke 
to him, but he made no reply. Then Jonas 
and Coelius, for the solace of the many who 
had received the truth from his lips, spoke 
aloud, and said,— 

“Venerable father, do you die trusting in 
Christ, and in the doctrine you have con¬ 
stantly preached ? ” 

He answered by an audible and joyful 
“Yes!” 

That was his last words on earth. Then, 
turning on his right side, he seemed to fall 
peacefully asleep for a quarter of an hour. 
Once more hope awoke in the hearts of his 
children and his friends; but the physician 
told them it was no favorable symptom. 

A light was brought near his face; a 
death-like paleness was creeping over it, and 
his hands and feet were becoming cold. 

Gently once more he sighed; and, with 
hands folded on his breast, yielded up his 
spirit to God without a struggle. 

This was at four o’clock in the morning 
of the 18th of February. 

And now, in the house opposite the church 
where he was baptized, and signed with the 
cross for the Christian warfare, Martin 
.Luther lies—his warfare accomplished, his 
weapons laid aside, his victory won—at rest 
beneath the standard he has borne so nobly. 
In the place where his eyes opened on this 
earthly life his spirit has awakened to the 
heavenly life. Often he used to speak of 
death as the Christian’s true birth, and this 
life as but a growing into the chrysalis-shell 
in which the spirit lives till its being is de¬ 
veloped, and it bursts the shell, casts off the 
web, struggles into life, spreads its wings 
and soars up to God. 

To Eva and me it seems a strange, mys¬ 
terious seal set on his faith, that his birth¬ 
place and his place of death—the scene of 
his nativity to earth and heaven—should be 
the same. 

We can only say, amidst irrepressible 
tears, those words often on his lips, “ 0 
death ! bitter to those whom thou leavest in 
life ! ” and “Fear not, Ood liveth still.” 

ELSE’S STORY. 

March , 1546. 

It is all over. The beloved, revered form 
is with us again, but Luther our father, our 
pastor, our friend, will never be amongst us 
more. His ceaseless toil and care for us all 
have worn him out,—the care which wastes 
life more than sorrow,—care such as no man 


knew since the apostle Paul, which only 
faith such as St. Paul’s enabled him to sus¬ 
tain so long. 

This morning his widow, his orphan sons 
and daughter, and many of the students 
and citizens went out to the Eastern Gate of 
the city to meet the funeral procession. 
Slowly it passed through the streets, so 
crowded, yet so silent, to the city church 
where he used to preach. 

Fritz came with the procession from 
Eisleben, and Eva with Heinz and Agnes, 
are also with us, for it seemed a necessity 
to our mother once more to feel and see her 
beloved around her, now that death has 
shown us the impotence of a nation’s love 
to retain the life dearest and most needed 
of all. 

Fritz has been telling us of that mournful 
funeral journey from Eisleben. 

The Counts of Mansfeld, with more than 
fifty horsemen, and many princes, counts, 
and barons, accompanied the coffin. In 
every village through which they passed 
the church-bells tolled as if for the prince 
of the land; at every city gate magistrates, 
clergy, young and old, matrons, maidens, 
and little children, thronged to meet the 
procession, clothed in mourning, and chant¬ 
ing funeral hymns—German evangelical 
hymns of hope and trust, such as he had 
taught them to sing. In the last church in 
which it lay before reaching its final resting 
place at Wittenberg, the people gathered 
around it, and sang one of his own hymns, 
“ I journey hence in peace,” with voices 
broken by sobs and floods of tears. 

Thus day and night the silent body was 
borne slowly through the Thuringen land. 
The peasants once more remembered his 
faithful affection for them, and everywhere, 
from village and hamlet, and every little 
group of cottages, weeping men and women 
pressed forward to do honor to the poor re¬ 
mains of him they had so often misunder¬ 
stood in life. 

After Pastor Bugenhagen’s funeral ser¬ 
mon from Luther’s pulpit, Melancthon 
spoke a few words beside the coffin in the 
city church. They loved each other well. 
When Melancthon heard of his death he 
was most deeply affected and said in the 
lecture-room,— 

“ The doctrine of the forgiveness of sins 
and of faith in the Son of God, has not been 
discovered by any human understanding, 
but has been revealed unto us by God 



218 


THE SCHONBERG-CTTA FAMILY. 


through this man whom He has raised up.” 

In the city church, beside the coffin, be¬ 
fore the body was lowered into its last rest¬ 
ing place near the pulpit where he preached, 
Dr. Melancthon pronounced these words in 
Latin, which Caspar Creutziger immedi¬ 
ately translated into German,— 

“ Every one who truly knew him, must 
bear witness that he was a benevolent, 
charitable man, gracious in all his discourse, 
kindly and most worthy of love, and neither 
rash, passionate, self-willed, or ready to 
take offence. And, nevertheless; there were 
also in him an earnestness and courage in 
his words and bearing such as become a 
man like him. His heart was true and 
faithful, and without falsehood. The se¬ 
verity which he used against the foes of the 
doctrine in his writings did not proceed 
from a quarrelsome or angry disposition, 
but from great earnestness and zeal for the 
truth. He always showed a high courage 
and manhood, and it was no little roar of 
the enemy which could appal him. Me¬ 
naces, dangers, and terror dismayed him 
not. So high and keen was his understand¬ 
ing, that he'alone in complicated, dark, and 
difficult affairs soon perceived what was to 
be counselled and to be done. Neither, as 
some think, was he regardless of authority, 
but diligently regarded the mind and will 
of those with whom he had to do. His 
doctrine did not consist in rebellious opin¬ 
ions made known with violence; it is 
rather an interpretation of the divine will 
and of the true worship of God, an expla¬ 
nation of the Word of God, namely, of the 
Gospel of Christ. Now he is united with 
the prophets of whom he loved to talk. 
Now they greet him as their fellow-laborer, 
and with him praise the Lord who gathers 
and preserves his Church. But we must 
retain a perpetual, undying recollection of 
this our beloved father, and never let his 
memory fade from our hearts. 

His effigy will be placed in the city church, 
but his living portrait is enshrined in count¬ 
less hearts. His monuments are the schools 
throughout the land, every hallowed pas¬ 
tor’s home, and above all, “the German 
Bible for the German people !” 

Wittenberg, April , 1547. 

We stand now in the foremost rank of 
the generations of our time. Our father’s 
house on earth has passed away for ever. 
Gently, not long after Dr. Luther’s death 


our gentle mother passed away, and our 
father entered on the fulfilment of those 
never-failing hopes to which, since his 
blindness, his buoyant heart lias learned 
more and more to cling. 

Scarcely separated a year from each other, 
both in extreme old age, surrounded by all 
dearest to them on earth, they fell asleep in 
Jesus. 

And now Fritz, who has an appointment 
at the University, lives in the paternal house 
with his Eva and our Thekla, and the 
children. 

Of all our family I sometimes think 
Thekla’s life is the most blessed. In our 
evangelical church, also, I perceive, God by 
his providence makes nuns; good women, 
whose wealth of love is poured out in the 
Church, whose inner as well as whose outer 
circle is the family of God. How many 
whom she has trained in the school and 
nursed in the seasons of pestilence or ad¬ 
versity, live on earth to call her blessed, or 
live in heaven to receive, her into everlast¬ 
ing habitations! 

The little garden behind the Augustei, 
has become a sacred place. Luther’s widow 
and children still live there. Those who 
knew him, and therefore loved him best, 
find a sad pleasure in lingering under the 
shadow of the trees which used to shelter 
him, beside the fountain and the little fish¬ 
pond which he made, and the flowers he 
planted, and recalling his words and his 
familiar ways; how he used to thank God 
for the fish from the pond, and the veget¬ 
ables sent to his table from the garden; how 
he used to wonder at the providence of 
God, who fed the sparrows and all the little 
birds, “ which must cost Him more in a 
year than the revenue of the king of 
France;” how he rejoiced in the “ dew, that 
wonderful work of God,” and the rose, 
which no artist could imitate, and the voice 
of the birds. How living the narratives of 
the Bible became when he spoke of them I 
—of the great apostle Paul whom he so 
honored, but pictured as “ an insignificant¬ 
looking, meagre man, like Philip Melanc¬ 
thon;” or of the Virgin Mary, “ who must 
have been a high and noble creature, a fair 
and gracious maiden, with a kind, sweet 
voice;” or of the lowly home at Nazareth, 
“ where the Saviour of the world was 
brought up as a little obedient child.” 

And not one of us, with all his vehe¬ 
mence, could ever remember a jealous or 



ELSE’S STORY . 


suspicious word, or a day of estrangement, 
so generous and trustful was his nature. 

Often, also, came back to us the tones of 
that rich, true voice, and of the lute or lyre, 
which used so frequently to sound from the 
dwelling-room with the large window, at 
his friendly entertainments, or in his more 
solitary hours. 

Then, in twilight hours of quiet, intimate 
converse, Mistress Luther can recall to us 
the habits of his more inner home life—how 
in his sicknesses he used to comfort her, 
and when she was weeping, would say, 
with irrepressible tears, “ Dear Katlie, our 
children trust us, though they cannot under¬ 
stand; so must we trust God. It is well if 
we do; all comes from him.” And his 
prayers morning and evening, and fre¬ 
quently at meals and at other times in the 
day—his devout repeating of the Smaller 
Catechism, “ to God”—his frequent fervent 
utterance of the Lord’s Prayer, or of psalms 
from the Psalter, which he always carried 
with him as a pocket prayer book. Or, at 
other times, she may speak reverently of 
his hours of conflict, when his prayers be¬ 
came a tempest—a torrent of vehement sup¬ 
plication—a wrestling with God, as a son 
in agony at the feet of a father: Or, again, 
of his sudden wakings in the night, to 
encounter the unseen devil with fervent 
prayer, or scornful defiance, or words of 
truth and faith. 

More than one among us knew what rea¬ 
son he had to believe in the efficacy of pray¬ 
er. Melancthon, especially, can never forget 
the day when he lay at the point of death, 
half unconscious, with eyes growing dim, 
and Luther came and exclaimed with dismay 

“God save us! how successfully has the 
devil misused this mortal frame !” 

And then turning from the company to¬ 
wards the window, to pray, looking up to the 
heavens, he came, as he himself said after¬ 
wards, “as a mendicant and a suppliant 
to God, and pressed him with all the prom¬ 
ises of the Holy Scriptures he could recall; 
so that God must hear me if ever again 1 
should trust his promises.” 

After that prayer, he took Melancthon 
by the hand, and said, “ Be of good cheer, 
Philip, you will not die.” And from that 
moment Melancthon began to revive and 
recover consciousness, and was restored to 
health. 

Especially, however, we treasure all he 
said of death and the resurrection, of lieav- 

THE 


317 

en and the future world of righteousness 
and joy, of which he so delighted to speak. 
A few of these I may record for my children. 

“In the papacy, they made pilgrimages 
to the shrines of the saints—to Rome, Jeru¬ 
salem, St. Jago—to atone for sins. But now, 
we in faith can make true pilgrimages, 
which really please God. When we dili¬ 
gently read the prophets, psalms, and evan¬ 
gelists, we journey towards God, not 
through cities of the saints, but in our 
thoughts and hearts, and visit the true 
Promised Land and Paradise of everlasting 
life. 

“The devil has sworn our death, but he will 
crack a deaf nut. The kernel will be gone.” 

He had so often been dangerously ill, 
that the thought of death was very familiar 
to him. In one of his sicknesses he said. “I 
know I shall not live long. My brain is 
like a knife worn to the hilt; it can cut 
no longer.” 

“At Coburg I used to go about and seek 
for a quiet place where 1 might be buried, 
and in the chapel under the cross I thought 
I could lie well. But now I am worse than 
then. God grant n<e a happy end! I have 
no desire to live longer.” 

When asked if people could be saved 
under the papacy who had never heard his 
doctrine of the Gospel, he said, “Many a 
monk have 1 seen, before whom, on his 
death-bed, they held the crucifix, as was 
then the custom. Through faith in His 
merits and passion, they may, indeed, have 
been saved.” 

“What is our sleep,” he said, “but a kind 
of death ? And what is death itself but a 
night-sleep ? In sleep all weariness is laid 
aside, and we become cheerful again, and 
rise in the morning fresh and well. So shall 
we awake from our graves in the last day, 
as though we had only slept a night, and 
bathe our eyes and rise fresh and well.” 

“0 gracious God I ” he exclaimed, “come 
quickly, come at last! I wait ever for that 
day—that morning of spring !” 

And he waits for it still. Not now, 
indeed, on earth, “in what kind of place 
we know not,” as he said; “but most surely 
free from all grief and pain, resting in 
peace and in the love and grace of God.” 

We also wait for that Day of Redemption, 
still in the weak flesh and amidst the storm 
and the conflict; but strong and peaceful in 
the truth Martin Luther taught us, and in 
the God he truste > the last. 

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